75%User score 75 percent
Synecdoche, New York
2008 · Drama
User Score
272 votes
When you talk about "The Swimmer" will you talk about yourself?
A man spends a summer day swimming home via all the pools in his quiet suburban neighborhood.
Recommendations based on this film
CinemaSerf
June 3, 2023
"Ned" (Burt Lancaster) has been away for a while so his neighbours are a bit surprised to see him, clad only in his trunks, swimming in their pool. After some chat with them, he discovers that barring the odd bit of terrain to cross, he can pretty much swim his way home through the pools of other neighbours/friends/acquaintances - a river and even a public lido... The film now follows him as this rather unique journe…
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Wuchak
June 16, 2024
**_Offbeat parable of self-discovery on the collapse of the “American dream”_** A somewhat confused man in swimming trunks (Burt Lancaster) travels from pool to pool in suburban Connecticut on his way home. Some of the people he comes across are played by Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Joan Rivers and Diana Muldaur, amongst several others. "The Swimmer" (1968) is a semi-surreal commentary on mid-60’s America and the em…
Read the full review on TMDBAbstractals
April 6, 2026
Burt Lancaster referred to this film as ""**'Death of a Salesman'** in swimming trunks,"" and that's not a bad characterization. You could also think of it, in many ways, as ""**'American Beauty'** in the late 1960s."" This movie came out nine years after the original **'Twilight Zone'** series aired, and it would have made an interesting episode. As a movie, it lasts a little too long, is fairly melodramatic, and ha…
Read the full review on TMDBReviews are written by the TMDB community, not by The Swimmer's publisher.
