Hoffman (1970)

"Reality betrays us all."-Hoffman

Peter Sellers is best known for his often bazaar, quirky character parts that can sometimes boarder on being impressions. I remember from his bio-pic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, that he was a little frustrated by this and longed to do more conventional, leading man type roles. Could he possibly have thought this would be one of those? Sellers plays a sexually frustrated, middle aged blackmailer, who forces a pretty young blond women (future Mrs. Jeremy Irons, Sinead Cusack) to spend a week with him in his flat, or else he'll revel to the police her fiances involvement in a crime.

Sellers came across perhaps his greatest role as Chance the Gardner, in the 1971 Jerzy Kosinski novella Being There, so we can assume the actor was in something of the habit of looking into eccentric works of literature for roles for himself, but what about Enrest Gebler's novel Shall I Eat You Now? convinced him to make this movie? Or perhaps I might rephrase that as why didn't he resist? Later in life Sellers reportedly commented that he hated Hoffman, because the lead characters personality was too close to his own (Sellers hated himself, for more on this see The Life and Death of Peter Sellers).

It's the story of a 'plain sad faced man', who 'missed the boat, but still needs love'. So he forces his secretary whom he's long been obsessed with to spend a week with him. It's a fantasy of a dirty, middle aged man. Given Sellers history of obsessing over beautiful women its even more disturbing as a film choice. He essentially kidnaps the woman, because 'he knows what she needs', and feels that if she's forced to spend time with him, she might fall in love with him. And in the movie it works!

Sellers gives a creepy performance, at first strongly implying an intent to violate the women, but never acts on it and gradually reveals different layers to his character. It is actually one of his strongest, most strangely subtle performances. Cusak is good, though I think her character changed a little too quickly. A little!? Perhaps the worst thing about this film is I kind of liked it, it's very unique, almost stage play like, but its hardly believable and it shouldn't work. But it does just enough, and intrigues just enough, and the musics good enough, that I've got to a give it a B-. Do not do the things in this movie, but if you watch, you might be surprised that it's kind of satisfying, in a weird, vaugly creepy way. Strange.