Watch Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? For Free

Thanks for the memories!

Such a frustrating disappointment

So much average

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I tracked this movie down purely to watch Shel Silverstein performing. The first time I watched this movie I saw right away that it was the basis for Fight Club. Don't know why nobody else sees it... the Fight Club wiki doesn't reference this movie or the book it is based upon. I guess the first rule of Fight Club is: "Don't talk about 'Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying All Of Those Terrible Things About Me?'"! That's all. Give credit where credit is due!

This film is in the tradition of absurdist cinema, and suffers from some of the defects of that genre. Particularly in the first half it is very mannered and seems to revel in quirkiness for its own sake. But as the movie progresses it becomes much more relateable and, in many cases, quite affecting. Barbara Harris' performance marks this transition very obviously.But what I think is important about this movie is that its narrative style and devices clearly were big influences on Woody Allen (particularly the integration of childhood memories with adult experience) and Charlie Kaufman (the use of absurdist devices to drive personal narrative). So in that sense it was quite groundbreaking.

This is a difficult movie, but worth staying with if you like fully developed characters, emotional depth and you don't mind something outside the normal linear Hollywood story telling format. Dustin Hoffman gives a fine nuanced performance and Barbara Harris is wonderful as a vulnerable woman all too aware that she has lost her youth. Her performance is touching and every moment she is on screen shines with her unique brilliance.

Harry Kellerman is the best portrait I have ever seen on celluloid of the inescapable nature of neurotic pain. The fixated, tortured soul--albeit tortured on the small, inner scale of suffering--awakens to his pain, sees a possible escape route, and struggles to hurl himself through it. But then he only finds himself bank again at square one, the tether of his Gordian knot unbroken and unfrayed. Told with humor and absurdity appropriate to the subject matter, Harry is a delightful, original, and insightful movie.