The Seduction of Joe Tynan
- 25 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Alan Alda not only wrote THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN, he stars as the title character, a hardworking senator with Presidential ambitions.
His life is about to get a lot more complicated. After passing a long talked about jobs bill, Tynan's stock in Washington soars. He suddenly finds himself leading the opposition against a Supreme Court nominee with a very racist past.
The lead champion of that same nominee is long-time friend Senator Birney, well played by Melvyn Douglas, who won an Oscar for "Being There" the same year that this film was released, 1979.
Birney is aging badly, appears to be slipping and is calling in all his markers from his loyal friend, Joe.
But Tynan finds more and more disturbing facts about the nominee, many of them from a new civil rights activist with deep political ties, Karen Traynor. Meryl Streep excels in one of her early big screen roles as Traynor. Her lust for justice and power eventually begins to halo onto Joe. Streep owns the screen in this film, released the same year as her breakout roles in "Manhattan" and "Kramer vs Kramer".
Barbara Harris (Family Plot, Nashville) plays Joe's wife Ellie. She and Joe have made the decision to keep their family living outside Washington DC, leading to longer and longer absences by Joe from Ellie and their kids.
Alda has always been a bit polarizing for me. I enjoy his work as Hawkeye on the classic TV series immensely. He was hilarious, biting and delivered some of the most groundbreaking TV satire of the 70's. His writing for the show also delivered a squadron of memorable episodes. This was his first big screen role and he filmed it while still in his role on "M*A*S*H".
But on the big screen, I've always felt like he's playing to the back row. Too much. Too "big" for the big screen.
I loved "The Four Seasons" but some of Alda's overacting made me cringe. I can't explain why he translates so differently on the big screen versus the small, but he's got the same big delivery here.
His best moments are his quietest, discussing a political issue with his staff, talking about family issues with Ellie. I'm not saying that Alda is bad here, he just serves up a couple cringe moments.
As Karen and Joe work together on the Supreme Court project, sparks fly, at least in the script. The two begin a torrid affair that I just kept scratching my head about because there is ZERO on screen chemistry between Streep and Alda.
For me, the best moments are the political ones and anytime Harris is on screen.
She's not a "poor wife" character. She's a successful woman on her own terms who's trying to evaluate what's left of her life after Joe breaks her trust. Harris holds your compete attention every moment she's on screen.
Rip Torn (Men in Black) is a great add as a late seventies chauvinist pig of a Senator. His gumbo eating contest with Joe is pretty funny, as is the party in his home, his long suffering wife oblivious to his Southern debauchery.
Joe's path is a fascinating one that I think Alda really captures well. He's torn between his longtime loyalties at work and his decades long marriage and responsibilities at home.
Streep delivers her usual great take, creating a strong woman who may be in over her head. She serves up a great deal of character background that makes her attraction to Tynan's power all the more logical, even if the sparks never generate a flame.
Seductions of many varieties drive the story.
Only in the film's final minute does Alda's screenplay let his characters down, with a moment so unearned and illogical that it deflates the film. If Alda had made the choice to end the film 15 or 30 seconds earlier with a freeze frame, it would have been a far better movie.
It seems the final seduction for Alda was the one to provide a happy ending.
THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN strategized its way to a B- for this voter.
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