Alan Arkin: Never a False Move

One of my two favorite Alan Arkin performances is from a film I don’t even like all that much. Even though it was a well-reviewed indie hit that scored four Oscar nominations, winning two (including one for Arkin as best supporting actor), I never felt love in my heart for Little Miss Sunshine. 

I don’t think it’s a bad film by any means, but I found it overly cloying and, at times, a bit cheap when trying to build goodwill with the audience. The film is just a bit too cute for me, save one particular actor’s presence: Alan Arkin. As Edwin Hoover, a grandfather on his way to a pageant where his granddaughter (Abigail Breslin) will be performing, Hoover hops in a van with his overly eccentric family for a long road trip to Redondo Beach, CA. Little Miss Sunshine might not have worked for me overall, but that’s probably because Arkin’s character dies about 3/4 of the way through, and once that event occurs, all the oxygen leaves the film. 

Arkin’s foul-mouthed, but good-hearted (once you got past his crusty exterior) grandpa grounds the film in some sense of reality. Of all the characters in Little Miss Sunshine, he was the one I believed was a real person. Arkin not only elevates the film, but also the actors around him—particularly Steve Carell who plays Uncle Frank, a suicidal Proust scholar (again with the excessive eccentricity), who doesn’t want to be anywhere, including in a van with too many people who know him too well. 

Uncle Frank also happens to be a gay man, and hands down, the funniest scene in the film is when Frank stops off at a gas station with the brood and buys gay porn mags for himself, and straight porn magazines for Grandpa . The scene has to be seen to be fully appreciated of course, but Arkin’s reaction to splitting “dirty” mags with Frank vibe is genuinely side-splitting. I have seldom laughed so hard in my life. And Arkin made it look easy. 

But then Alan Arkin had been doing that very thing (making it look easy) for ages. Over a career that touched seven different decades, Arkin was nominated for four Academy Awards—as a lead in both The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming in 1966, and then again in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter just two years later (in between he expertly played a villain in Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn). Despite being recognized as a lead twice by The Academy, Arkin largely spent the remainder of his career in supporting roles. 

The seventies weren’t as kind to Arkin in terms of quality projects, but he did bookend the decade with Mike Nichols’ imperfect but often fascinating Catch-22 in 1971, and the hysterical Arthur Hiller comedy, The In-Laws. Perfectly paired with Peter Falk, the two men get tangled in a number of misadventures on the eve of their children’s wedding. The In-Laws is one of the rare films that can be called a “laugh riot” and fully earn that distinction.

If the seventies were a bit thin for Arkin, the ‘80s were anorexic. Save the acclaimed TV movie, Escape From Sobibor (a true-life tale about a Jewish uprising in a German prison camp during WW2), the ‘80s were all but a lost decade for Arkin.

But if you are as talented and distinctive as Arkin, and you keep at it, eventually the great parts will find you. Starting with the ‘90s, and carrying well into the next century, the very prolific Arkin was found. The line-up of ‘90s high quality projects that Arkin was involved in is pretty damn ridiculous for a balding, older actor, who couldn’t catch a break in the prior decade: Edward Scissorhands, The Rocketeer, Glengarry Glen Ross (where his simple line reading of “Boots, yes” is one of the best, desperately funny two words ever spoken by an actor on film), Mother Night, the wonderful Grosse Pointe Blank, Gattaca, and The Slums of Beverly Hills were all part of Arkin’s come back decade.

In watching Glengarry back recently, I took note of how few lines Arkin has in the film despite being in several scenes. Often he’s just listening, interjecting briefly, and reacting. And yet it is he who is controlling the scenes. It’s a remarkable performance. 

The next century included the criminally under-seen Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, the aforementioned Little Miss Sunshine, Sunshine Cleaning, Marley & Me, City Island, Argo (which earned Arkin his final Oscar nod), and on television, a 17-episode run on the acclaimed Netflix comedy, The Kominsky Method.

Seldom in the history of film has one actor’s skill set and on screen persona (however cranky, and Arkin was great at playing cranky) engendered such immediate affection every time they stood in front of a camera. Arkin will probably be remembered most for his comedic roles, but the fact is, he could do anything. He was very funny. He was also often touching, powerful, and any other positive adjective you might like to use. The only thing he never seemed to be was false. Not even once. 

Alan Arkin died on June 30, 2023. He was 89 years old.