movie poster for BEING THERE

Flicks ID

5039

Cert

15

Running time

125 mins

Country

Format

DVD

BEING THERE (1980)

HAL ASHBY

Plot

Sellers' last film is his masterpiece. A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington DC 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. After a run in with a limousine, he ends up a guest of Eve and her husband Ben, an influential but sickly businessman. Now called Chauncey Gardner, Chance becomes friend and confidante to Ben, and an unlikely political insider. It's the story of an innocent who rises to power on the back of vacant homilies. Funny, touching...and simply brilliant.