tavm Review of Alice's Restaurant

Alice's Restaurant (1969)

Arthur Penn's Alice's Restaurant is a product of its time

[6/10 · 1 May 2007]

Alice's Restaurant is a time capsule of the attitudes of young people during the late '60s as experienced by folk singer Arlo Guthrie and his friends like the married couple Ray and Alice Brock, played here by James Broderick (Mathew Broderick's father) and Pat Quinn. Very much of its time, Arthur Penn's film tries to mix the humorous with the dramatic with uneven results. Some of the most touching scenes are those of Arlo with his father, folk singer Woody Guthrie (played here by Joseph Boley) and those of Ray and Alice after the drug death of a friend. There's also a nice musical duet with Woody's friend Pete Seeger and Arlo in Woody's hospital room. The most funny scene was the one concerning Arlo's attempts to get more urine for the draft board. Look for Shelley Plimpton, who had married Keith Carradine and gave him a daughter, actress Martha Plimpton, as Reenie who is a 15-year old girl who tries to seduce Arlo and M. Emmett Walsh as a Group W sergeant. Though nominated for Best Picture of 1969, Alice's Restaurant seems dated now. Ray and Alice's remarriage at the end and the followup makes this one of the most bittersweet movies I've ever seen...