The narrative line of the script is scattered and seems to pick up ideas and problems and then drop them without resolution to tackle some other tangential issue. The issues all pertain to the relationship between the father and son but it would have been better to focus more on their interaction and less on exterior forces. Benson tries in the lead but just is not that strong of a screen presence especially when competing with Newman's star power. The rest of the cast is certainly talented even if what they are handed character wise is diffuse. It is interesting to see some like Freeman and Barkin who went on to long careers just starting out. Not a bad film but very average.

The reason I have such fond memories of this movie is because I remember how I felt (and still do - but it's not the same as the first time) the first time I saw it on video, in maybe 1993, and the feelings it provoked in me.

I graduated from high school in 1984, the year the film was made, and my mother had passed away earlier in 1979, leaving me to grow up after 13 years of age with my father and younger sister. My older brother was soon to go into the Air Force, and my older sister was already away to college. While there were many differences between Paul Newman's character and my own father, the fundamental relationship he had with Robby Benson was right on the mark with me and my father. My father died when I was 26, in 1993. I think that Robby Benson's character was a few years younger when his dad in the movie died, but it was close enough to hit home with me. I, like the Benson character, was a little aimless after high school, and my father did seem to have more patience with me at times, he could give me some harsh input at other times. And my father went for 10 years without dating anyone after my mother passed away, but towards the end of his life he did find a woman that he had a lot of fun with, and we all did things together at times as well. My father was also about the same age as Newman's character when he died, and I was present right after he had his final heart attack and died at home.

Now that I have explained some similarities with my life and the movie, I'll get back to why I liked the movie so much. It wasn't because of the coincidental similarities between my life and the movie, but because my life is real, and many people have many of these same basic father-son dynamics, and the writers(half Newman),actors (big part Newman),and director (Newman again)somehow pulled off an amazing dose of reality with this film that is common to all of us. Newman just commits himself so honestly. He has that seriousness in his character that at times is how many capable, grounded, but real fathers are; sometimes mixes it up with a humor that is just as honest and bold, maybe even irreverent, and then other times when they're with their sons and they have a 'comradery'. And then other times when fathers are just plain irritated, and the son knows he's on his father's bad side at the moment, and he should be worried, but he also knows that his father is a softy down deep. However a son would never challenge him and expect that soft side, and the son also instinctively knows that his father isn't perfect but he is much wiser than the him, and he certainly knows the father really does love him and has the son's best interests at heart.

To summarize, first of all the performances in this movie are of a Team who were in touch with the bareness and essence of our life, of our American society and family reality. And then secondly, they somehow manage to give it back to us for us all to see on the screen, and allow us to see ourselves in a new and deeper way. I understand myself and my relationship with my father, and his relationship with me, a little better because of this movie. And that is the goal of any art, and should be the goal of people intending to make good movies. Because this movie taught me so much, I have to say that it I value it is a great movie, it (the whole Team) delivered what might be expected from the title and beyond; it was heart breaking and heart warming, it was meaningful, and I had fun watching it!. Thanks to the whole Team, but a very special thanks to Paul Newman!

Pat Wilson

While I thought the movie was good, I had a very hard time with the scene in which Harry's daughter visits. Harry was so unbelievably cruel to his daughter in this scene, that I really wish I hadn't seen it. It actually depressed me for days.

Harry's daughter visits Harry and his son with her husband and newborn daughter. Her husband, a life insurance salesman, shockingly tries to sell Harry life insurance, which Harry takes great offense at. The daughter then very nicely asks if she could possibly take her dead mother's china if Harry and his son aren't using it.

Okay, so maybe this was a bit insensitive, but it struck me that the daughter seemed like a very hard worker with a full time job and a new baby and, maybe, just maybe it was really tough for her without her mother and that's why she wanted the china.

Harry says that she can have the china, but then he maliciously wets the bottom of the box he gives her to carry it in. The china then falls out and breaks in a million pieces. The daughter then sees that the bottom of the box is wet, and she becomes very hurt and angry. She then exits with husband and screaming newborn.

Harry finds this funny. I did not.

My mother died when I was four, and I must confess that I have always wanted her china as well. It has sat in the china cabinet since her death, one of the few relatively unchanged items since. There are many times when I have missed having a mother and perhaps illogically have associated the china too strongly with her presence.

Perhaps wanting the china is materialistic, but it seems inhuman on a Father's part to not understand why his daughter might want something from her mother.

I really had a hard time caring about Harry after that scene.