The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

That was an excellent one.

Blistering performances.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

First, this film is slow. They don't make movies like this anymore but if you like slow story telling, you might like it. I didn't. (SPOILER), this move doesn't have a happy ending and that's what I really didn't like about it. I like happy endings. I just do. Still, even though I saw this in my teens, and I watched it cause I caught a clip with nudity, I was a little curious and I stuck with it and it stuck with me, enough for me to write this bad review 20 years later.Some of the boys are mean, and while that might be accurate for boys at school (in fact, I know it is), it seemed a bit over the top to me. More cruel than necessary. Beyond that, the ending was unpleasant.It's strange to me to read all the positive reviews of this. I didn't enjoy it, nor did I find the "artistic" side of it made up for the unpleasantness or the slow pace. Others are welcome to disagree, but this isn't a film I'd recommend.

Sarah Miles deserved far, far better than this film. Her performance is head and shoulders above any others in the movie, and this becomes evident 15 minutes into it. Her performance is the only reason I can give this film a rating higher than one star. Kris Kristofferson plays her love interest, in a performance that redefines the words laconic and listless.Possible Spoilers: Miles plays a lonely widow whose husband who died after a long illness, with a troubled, sullen teen son (naturally). She meets Kris Kristofferson, playing a sailor with no sense that he is one, and instantly drops all of her British reserve to fall in lust with an American stranger who is completely passive and has absolutely no personality. Sarah Miles literally carries every scene between her and Kristofferson on her own shoulders; it's like watching a champion dancer dance with a mannequin, except that you can at least prop up and pose a mannequin. For some bizarre reason, Kristofferson, who underplays every role he has, decided to underplay this performance even more, as if that would give him some sort of quiet American strength. Instead, it gives him a quiet lethargy that puts the energy right through the floor. I have to wonder if Miles actually said to Kristofferson at some point during rehearsals: "Kris, you are going to give me more energy than that during the take, aren't you?" If the director actually said to Kristofferson "less energy, be more subtle", that was the Wrong direction for Kristofferson. It's like saying to Robin Williams "Robin! Be more manic, and much higher energy!" Naturally, the woman's son resents the hell out of Kristofferson, and like most movie children of single mothers, is under the influence of the worst element he can find, a hateful little psychopath that likes blowing seagulls' heads off with firecrackers, mutilating cats, etc, without adults around them ever noticing. Without a strong father figure around, the movie argues, male children will immediately fall into gangs or worse.The end of the movie is out of a Stephen King novel, and does not fit in with the rest of the story at all. There seems to be no moral or statement to the film that I could find. In fact, it seems to go out of its way to avoid one. If you had to find a "moral" in it, it would seem to be, stay in the Navy and never retire, or you will deserve to be cut into tiny pieces in short order, as your just punishment. Why? I have no idea. I guess the sea is a jealous mistress. Like, Fatal Attraction jealous.Which is especially odd, as there are No Sea Metaphors or allusions to the sea in this film! (This IS adapted from a Japanese story by a famous but rather disturbed author, who committed suicide as a protest against modern society, but even in terms of the Samuri tradition, the film makes no coherent statement; even one that we could disagree with.) The film left me with a feeling that I had been subjected to three levels of abuse: one, a slow-moving (and I mean, Slow-Moving) morality tale with no moral at the end, two, Kris Kristofferson's energy-sucking performance that seemed to suck the vitality out of me as I watched it, and lastly, the abuse of Sarah Miles, who gave an Oscar-worthy performance in a film that was not worthy of her, and gave her no energy to work with; which means her work was twice-heroic. If she was not in this film, no-one would remember it on any level; and out of respect for her, no-one should.

An unforgettable and profoundly disturbing story centered on a widow, Anne, and her only son, Jonathan, in a remote English seaside town. Jonathan belongs to a gang led by a precociously intelligent sociopath known only as Chief, who through sheer force of will and intellect, indoctrinates them with a quasi-Neitzchean philosophy of ultimate superiority and the non-existence of morality. When Kris Kristofferson's Captain Jim arrives in town, and strikes up a passionate relationship with the lonely Anne, Jonathan sees him as a heroic masculine prototype, removed from society and living a 'true' life on the open sea. But when the Captain decides to settle down and marry Anne, Jonathan takes it as an ultimate and unforgivable betrayal, and exacts a terrible revenge.Based on the 1963 Mishima novel, "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea" hints at many themes, from Jonathan's Oedipal obsession with spying on his mother's bedroom to his physical admiration of the Captain that verges on latent homosexuality. The atmosphere, masterfully created by veteran cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, is one of darkly brooding clouds, gray seas, and an air that constantly threatens rain. The (in)famous sex scenes are really not that explicit, and the casual violence exhibited by the children is far more shocking than any glimpse of breast or buttock.The film, for all its brilliantly evocative atmosphere, excellent performances, and quietly brooding menace, is not without its flaws. The score is terrible, all mawkish piano and sickly clarinet. It is often overly intrusive and distracts from the overall sense of ripe stillness that director Carlino conjures throughout the film. But in general, the film is a remarkable experience, and one that any viewer is unlikely to forget quickly.

I saw this movie when it came out. With no advance info, I was entranced with the story, the beauty of the countryside and village. It proved to be a powerful story, great love story, finally ending in a dreadful surprise outcome. Very psychological story and character study. Watch it, you will be rewarded.Life in the village provided many interesting cameos. A story of how wrong things can go, even in a peaceful Welsh seaside area. Deep feelings from a traumatic loss of a father cause the young boy to develop an unhealthy way of coping with his mother and her new friend. Frightening, beautiful, complicated and well worth a view.