Philip Seymour Hoffman has accumulated numerous accolades and awards during his long career as an actor. He finally makes his directorial debut with Jack Goes Boating, based on an Off-Broadway play written by Robert Glaudini. The original theatrical production was workshopped at the LAByrinth Theater Company, where Hoffman once served as co-director along with fellow actor John Ortiz. Both Hoffman and Ortiz starred in the play along with Daphne Rubin-Vega. All three return for the feature film version with Amy Ryan rounding out the main cast.
Hoffman is the titular Jack, a chauffeur working for his uncle's limo service in New York City. Jack is the kind of fellow you wouldn't waste a second glance on. He's the type of person no one pays attention to in the Big Apple and that's the way he likes it. Jack shuffles along, staring at his feet as he walks the pavement. He buries his head in his earphones while listening to reggae music on his Walkman. Yes, he listens to an honest-to-goodness cassette player. Jack's love of reggae has led him to fix his hair into a series of unkempt dreadlocks.
Jack is best friends with Clyde (Ortiz), who is married to the strong-willed Lucy (Rubin-Vega). Lucy works at a funeral parlor with Connie (Ryan), a woman who is as socially awkward as Jack. Clyde and Lucy figure Jack and Connie would go well together, probably because it would be almost impossible for them to fit with anybody else. The four friends sit down for a dinner marked by sparse and uneasy conversation. In spite of that fact, Jack and Connie seem to hit it off. When she makes an off-hand remark about going boating in the summer, Jack embarks on a personal journey of self-improvement that begins with swimming lessons. Later, when Connie mentions nobody has ever cooked for her, Jack learns how to cook and agonizes over the idea of making the perfect meal for his paramour.
As the relationship between Jack and Connie blossoms, the marriage between Clyde and Lucy crumbles in direct proportion.
For his first directing gig, Hoffman chooses a less ambitious project where the emphasis is on acting rather than camera style. It's about what's happening on camera and not behind the camera. Needless to say, the acting is superb all around. Hoffman is an old hat at playing these roles. There's something almost heartbreaking about his performance as this gentle teddy bear of a man. His child-like demeanor certainly inspired the film's kid-lit style title. Amy Ryan is perfectly cast opposite Hoffman. Ryan's career skyrocketed following her award-winning turn as the drug-addled mother in Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone. She also won acclaim as the dorky love interest to Steve Carell on The Office. Ryan doesn't go to either extreme as Connie, but finds a quiet desperation the character. In the role of Jack's best friend is John Ortiz, who most movie-goers will recognize as the drug kingpin in Miami Vice or the drug kingpin in Fast & Furious. Yes, it is refreshing to see Ortiz in a more understated role than that of the generic, ethnic villain.
Jack Goes Boating tries a little too hard to create quirky characters. The script tends to labor at a feeling of preciousness leading to an artificial aura around certain scenes, in particular one in which Connie confesses to fantasizing about making love to Jack on a spaceship rocketing through the cosmos.
The oddball romance between introverts is the kind of storyline you generally see between two twenty-something hipsters, but Hoffman and Ryan make it work.
Rating: **½ (*****)
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