Jack Goes Boating

Philip Seymour Hoffman makes a low-key but confident directorial debut with Jack Goes Boating, based on a play by Bob Glaudini in which Hoffman and two of his co-stars appeared Off Broadway. Hoffman also plays Jack, a New York limo driver whose romantic life gets some sprucing up from co-worker Clyde (the excellent John Ortiz) and his wife Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega). An awkward winter blind date with Connie (Amy Ryan, a new addition to the film cast) leads to a plan for summer boating in Central Park. The bulk of the film is the gentle comedy of Jack's progress towards the boat trip; he needs Clyde to give him swimming lessons and help planning a dinner party for the two couples. Watching Jack blossom is fun, but Hoffman has played inarticulate nice guys before. I was more impressed by Ryan's carefully worked out restraint as Connie, full of feelings she wants to express but doesn't know how to. Ryan's performance is especially touching and delicate as the relationship turns physical, and Connie's assertiveness at the climax feels earned.

Glaudini's screenplay contrasts Jack and Connie's fumblings with the crumbling marriage of Clyde and Lucy. John Ortiz is especially good as Clyde, a smart underachiever who can't deal with knowing that Lucy is slipping away. Hoffman keeps the material from feeling too stagey until the big dinner party scene at the end; Jack Goes Boating is full of funky New York texture, from the pool Jack swims in to the barren limo lot where Jack and Clyde start their work day. Philip Seymour Hoffman's talents as an actor are self-evident; in directing for the first time he reveals a more subtle but no less rich set of gifts.