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To me, this movie is perfection.

Awesome Movie

As Good As It Gets

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

During the mid 1960s there was a movie called "The Love One" that was billed as "The Movie With Something to Offend Everyone". Released during that same era, "Reflections in a Golden Eye" might well have been billed as "The Movie With Something to Disgust Everyone". That is because there is undoubtedly something in this jaw-dropping movie that will make every single member of the viewing audience squirm in their seats at some point or other, regardless of their age, gender or sexual proclivities. Adultery, homosexuality, sadomasochism, bestiality, voyeurism, self-mutilation, cruelty to animals, murder, those are just a few of the things that go on here. Ostensibly the story takes place on an Army base somewhere in the southern United States. Actually, however, it takes place in some bizarre and perverse parallel universe where Tennessee Williams meets The Twilight Zone. Certainly if the U.S. Army bears even the slightest resemblance to what is depicted in this movie than the country is in a whole lot of trouble.The plot revolves around two Army officers and their respective wives, who are best friends and next-door neighbors on an Army Base. By far the most normal of the four characters is that played by Brian Kieth, who is merely committing adultery with his best friend and next-door neighbors's wife. But hey, can you blame him when his friend's wife is a very-willing Elizabeth Taylor? Besides, Kieth's own wife, who had suffered a miscarriage a few years earlier, hasn't had any use for him since. Played by Julie Harris, Kieth's wife is definitely what a Harley Street Psychiatrist would label, clinically speaking, "Barmy". For her role Liz comes across like a combination of Scarlett O'Hara and Martha from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". It's not very surprising that she is having an affair with her neighbor because her own husband, played by Brando, is a closet case, and she obviously knows it. They're just your typical well-adjusted American couple; she has complete contempt for him while he absolutely loathes her. So, while Liz is having it off with Kieth while Brando is out stalking enlisted men around the Army Base. Watching this movie one can't help wondering, if this is how things are in the Army, what can it possibly be like in the Marine Corps?"Reflections in a Golden Eye" is meant to be an adult drama. However, everything about the film is so extremely over-the-top that the only way to enjoy it at all is to view it as if it were some sort of parody. In that sense it is somewhat reminiscent of "The Fountainhead", another dramatic movie that can only really be enjoyed if it is viewed as a comedy.

This movie isn't for everybody. Huston, Taylor, Brando and the rest of the cast took some serious artistic risks back in 1967, and a lot of people didn't like the product; 50 years on, a lot of people still won't. If one comes to it cold, hearing only that it is only a movie about "a closeted homosexual in the military", which is true of the Brando character, and expects some kind of serious dramatic narrative experience - like for example in "The Sergeant" which also came out in 1968 - the approach of "Reflections", which I think is not unlike that of a Beckett play, will be a surprise, and one might say, "this is a weird movie - it's not a good drama." But I believe that would be a mistake. I don't mean that one kind of approach is "better" than the other, only that different kinds of movies with different kinds of artistic excellence as their goals shouldn't be measured by the same yardstick.The action of this film is pretty much indifferent to place and setting; it doesn't need to be in the South and it doesn't need to be on a military base. It is sometime in the period from 1945-1960 when people of privilege spent their evenings at each other's houses, playing cards and drinking way more hard liquor than today. In fact the time and setting blurred in my view into a sort of dreamlike background, not demanding to be like a real place or time.There are two military officers. There are their wives, whose thwarted lives are filled by avocations and disorders - sex, alcohol, and horsewomanship, or art, classical music, and depression. Their wives have admirers. One is the enlisted man played by Robert Forster, who elicits and then upsets one category after another. Another is the Filipino servant played by Zorro David (his only movie ever) with flamboyant swishiness, but is he really gay or are we being tempted to overassume? It's only what we see and judge, and neither can be trusted.All have secrets, concealing who they really are while trying to figure out who the other people are, sometimes successfully, more often not. People read people and situations incorrectly and act upon their bad understanding and send the activity off in another direction. When people think they are unobserved they act much differently, comforting themselves in ways that are not provided for in the conventions that surround them. To borrow the thoughts of a character, they are all square pegs trying to deal with the round holes they have been hammered into by others or themselves.And if that all reads sort of like the universal experience of people, that's sort of the point, I think.I don't think it's perfect, but every time I try to pick a flaw I start to wonder if the artists didn't intend it just that way for a reason. Some detractors have noted that the Brando character's accent is just incomprehensible at times - I turned on closed captioning eventually. But then at one of those times he was giving instructions to a subordinate, who then doesn't carry them out properly, so was this on purpose? I didn't understand why the frenzied camera work in the final scene was done that way either. But was it meant to convey something? These people are not easily dismissed.

There's big trouble at a southern Army base: The colonel (Marlon Brando) is a closeted wacko married to a beautiful but cruel woman (Elizabeth Taylor); she's having an affair with his best friend (Brian Keith) while a mysterious, horse-loving, enlisted man is a freaky prowler.This story of endless domestic turmoil is in the style of Tennessee Williams' work, but the script is confusing, shallow, and pointless with no likable characters to root for. Taylor's shrill, girlish voice is grating as is Brando's drawl which is so bad I needed subtitles. Brian Keith and Julie Harris, as his wife, are good but he's dull and she's spaced-out and dependent on a weird houseboy. The movie was originally filmed entirely in a dark, golden color which got old, fast. Also, the story is set in the 40s, but some of Taylor's wardrobe, make-up, and hairdos are right out of the sixties and her post-Cleopatra-look.This is an incredibly disjointed and slow-moving film that meanders around some pretty dysfunctional people without ever addressing their shortcomings straight on. Taylor and Brando's acting can only be described as hammy and I was more confused than entertained.

The constant yellow tint to the film is VERY annoying. Brando is almost incomprehensible - mumbling his way thru his lines with a bad southern accent. The story is absurd. Brando is an Army Major married to Liz Taylor who is having an affair with Brian Keith whose wife cut off her nipples with garden shears after her baby died. No-nipples has an effeminate Asian houseboy who sings and dances for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, there's a PFC who like to ride horses in the buff, spend his evenings lurking in the shadows, and breaking into Liz's bedroom to fondle her underwear. Brando is attracted to the PFC and winds up shooting him in Liz's bedroom in the final scene. If this strikes you a dreadful bilge,you are 100% correct. Had it been played for laughs, it might have been slightly bearable but unfortunately it's played straight.