Movie · 1979 · Comedy, Drama · 2h 10m · PG · English
Curator score: 8.9/10 (157.2K ratings)
Getting there is half the fun; being there is all of it!
Overview
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.
Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart, Richard Basehart, Ruth Attaway, David Clennon, Fran Brill, Denise DuBarry, Alice Hirson, Jerome Hellman, John Harkins, James Noble, Mitch Kreindel, Oteil Burbridge, Richard Venture, Sam Weisman, Elya Baskin, Hal Ashby
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, melancholy political satire with a deceptively simple premise and one of Peter Sellers’ finest performances. It works as both a comic fable about media-driven perception and a quietly devastating portrait of innocence colliding with power.
Best for
fans of satirical comedies with a literary edge
viewers who like understated, performance-driven films
people interested in media, politics, and social class satire
audiences who appreciate bittersweet, slow-burn humor
Skip if
you want fast pacing or broad slapstick
you dislike ambiguity and deadpan irony
you prefer plot-heavy stories with clear moral answers
you are looking for a purely uplifting feel-good comedy
Overview
Hal Ashby turns a simple premise into a sly, elegant critique of American self-importance. Chance is one of cinema’s great blank slates: a man who understands the world almost entirely through television, yet is treated by elites as a sage because he speaks in calm, garden-variety metaphors they’re eager to hear as wisdom.
Worth noting
What makes the film endure is the balance of comedy and sadness. It is funny in a dry, almost ceremonial way, but it never loses sight of the loneliness at its center. Peter Sellers gives a beautifully controlled performance, and the supporting cast helps the satire land without tipping into caricature.
Bottom line
The film’s politics are sharp, but its real sting is broader: institutions, media, and status-seekers project meaning onto emptiness whenever it serves them. That final note of uncertainty gives the movie its lasting chill, making it feel less like a punchline than a warning.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Jim Cummings (5★) · 2068 likes
So...
I watched this for the first time a month ago.
I had dinner with Michael Shannon and he called himself Chauncey Gardener, he said "I'm a fraud, I don't know what I'm doing and I've fooled everyone."
People on Letterboxd have told me to watch this film for years and I didn't, foolishly.
I watched the first 30 minutes after dinner and thought "this is not a good movie. People are wrong about this."
I then finished the film… more So...
I watched this for the first time a month ago.
I had dinner with Michael Shannon and he called himself Chauncey Gardener, he said "I'm a fraud, I don't know what I'm doing and I've fooled everyone."
People on Letterboxd have told me to watch this film for years and I didn't, foolishly.
I watched the first 30 minutes after dinner and thought "this is not a good movie. People are wrong about this."
I then finished the film… more
Eli Hayes (4.5★) · 920 likes
"It's for sure a white man's world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a piss-ant. And I'll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th' ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you've gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want."
As soon… more
eely (2.5★) · 667 likes
the scene where shirley maclaine masturbates on the floor while peter sellers does yoga on the bed saved cinema.
nick (4★) · 605 likes
Instead of its on-the-nose political allegory, I would prefer to see Being There, one of the most quirky yet transcendental comedies I've seen, as a witty take on "what if God was one of us", or the tragic ways innocence gets tarnished in this highly complicated, yet ultimately insincere world we live in.
In this modern fairy tale, Chance, a reticent shut-in whose only interests are watching TV and gardening, gets his big break by applying his philosophy regarding gardening… more
Willow Maclay · 580 likes
Shirley MacLaine masturbates while Peter Sellers does a head-stand. Cinema sure was something else in the 1970s.