Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.
Being There is a singular satirical fable — Peter Sellers delivers one of cinema's most extraordinary performances as Chance the gardener, a blank slate onto whom society projects its own desires and wisdom. The plot is a brilliantly conceived parable about media, celebrity, and the emptiness of political discourse that feels even more prescient today. Novelty is extremely high: the film's deadpan tone, its philosophical ambiguity, and the audacity of its final shot make it genuinely one-of-a-kind. The ending in particular is iconic and boldly surreal. Cinematography is competent and well-composed but not the film's defining strength, keeping it from a perfect sweep.