Synopsis
Widower Harry Keach is a construction worker who was raised to appreciate the importance of working for a living. He takes a dim view of his sensitive son Howard's lackadaisical lifestyle and has a strained relationship with his daughter Nina as he does not approve of her husband. When Harry is fired from his job, his life changes drastically as he is made to focus on the relationships around him.
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Cast
- Paul NewmanHarry Keach
- Robby BensonHoward Keach
- Ellen BarkinKatie Wilowski
- Wilford BrimleyTom Keach
- Judith IveySally
- Ossie DavisRaymond
- Morgan FreemanSiemanowski
- Katherine BorowitzNina
- Maury ChaykinLawrence
- Joanne WoodwardLilly
Recommendations
- 50
TV Guide Magazine
Benson is as annoyingly untalented as ever, and the film is definitely overlong, bordering on the dull. - 50
The Associated Press
Harry and Son is uneven, rambling into irrelevant subplots. But the strength of Newman's character holds the film together. [06 Mar 1984] - 50
Miami Herald
By the end, we can guess what Newman was up to, and how warm a story he meant to make. But nothing comes together until one of the characters is written out, and by that time, it is almost always too late. [02 Mar 1984, p.D1] - 42
Christian Science Monitor
It would take a more expert director than Newman to pull the lumpy Harry & Son screenplay into shape, with its many trite scenes that can't decide whether they're funny or sad or in between. [19 Apr 1984, p.25] - 40
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Certainly, this is meant to be a bittersweet tale of the ties that bind the generations, of the love-hate relationship between a demanding Daddy and his amiable offspring. But nothing really develops, nothing ever connects. [02 Mar 1984] - 30
The New York Times
A big-screen blowup of the sort of "I love you, Pop" television play that littered the small screen 25 years ago. - 30
Variety
Fuzzily conceived and indecisively executed, Harry & Son represents a deeply disappointing return to the director's chair for Paul Newman. Cowritten and coproduced by the star as well, pic [suggested by the novel A Lost King by Raymond DeCapite] never makes up its mind who or what it wants to be about and, to compound the problem, never finds a proper style in which to convey the tragicomic events that transpire. - 30
Time Out
A curiously indigestible phenomenon, like being forced to eat five courses of avocado by an overbearing dinner-party host.
