Everyone has experienced a few films that they believe represent something akin to a spiritual awakening in their formative years as a lover of the medium. Some of them age spectacularly well, becoming evergreen presences as time goes on; others tend to lose their magic as we explore more of what the medium has to offer. I was fearful to revisit Being There, a film I first saw in my early teenage years, which absolutely astounded me with its depth, nuance and ability to say something that I could not find in any other films I was watching at the time. Yet, after more than a decade of circling around the idea of diving back into this story, I finally took the plunge and was more than enthralled to discover that not only is it as brilliant today as it was years ago, it has grown in meaning, having a quiet complexity that my developing mind at the time of the first encounter could not comprehend, but which now announce themselves boldly as the cornerstone of what can only be described as an essential work of pure ambitious artistry. Considering it was directed by Hal Ashby, who is perhaps the most important filmmaker to emerge from the 1970s (at least as far as finding the perfect balance between cinematic form and the accompanying philosophy), and written by Jerzy Kosiński, adapting his own incredible novel, it should be no surprise that Being There is every bit as brilliant as its reputation may suggest, a bold, uncompromising examination of the human condition told through the story of Chance, a mild-mannered gardener thrust into the outside world after the death of his previous employer, and who unexpectedly becomes quite a sensation when he is introduced to Ben Rand, an influential political figure who take him under his wing, and his wife Eve, who develops a special connection with the lovable but enigmatic new visitor to their home. A wonderfully offbeat and effortlessly charming film that is every bit as brilliant, subversive and moving as we may imagine, Being There is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking, and a film that challenges us to look beneath the surface, finding meaning in the most unexpected of places.

More often than not, we find Being There listed as one of the greatest political satires in film history, since the majority of the acclaim it has received coalescing around the central story of a seemingly ordinary man somehow maneuvering himself into the corridors and offices occupied by the elite of Washington D.C., managing to fool everyone around him into believing that he is some political mastermind, when in reality he just happened to be in the right place at the right time, his meandering statements on gardening being mistaken for ingenious political ideology, turning him into an overnight sensation based on what everyone assumes is some daring philosophical perspective. The United States, much like the rest of the world, was in an awkward place in the 1970s – the Cold War was raging on, and the American people were starting to believe that a president may not actually have their best interests at heart, since the downfall of Richard Nixon (as well as all the political trouble occuring up and down throughout the capital) instilled a sense of incredulity to the supposed belief that politicians have our best interests at heart. A film about a simpleton managing to break through and become an influential political figure through virtually no effort other than being willing to just observe and speak when spoken to, is a fascinating approach to the topic, since there’s something quite compelling about seeing someone so desperately ordinary having the power to essentially change the world in his own small way, and frankly being entirely unaware of the influence he is having amongst the prestigious people who enter his orbit. Political satire is something very difficult to pull off effectively, especially when dealing with such pressing topics – but ultimately, Being There is about a very particular era in the country’s politics, but it isn’t too specific to the point of becoming alienating, and in focusing on a few more universal ideas that can be appreciated outside of the confines of this story. It amounts to a whip-smart satire that knows how to draw the audience in without relying too heavily on specific details, allowing the film to be as resonant and timely today as it was when it was initially released.

It seems impossible (if not outright reckless) to talk about Being There without mentioning the subject of neurodivergence. This film poses a very interesting  question: Is it possible to discuss a subject when there isn’t a word to describe it? It has often been a topic of contention when certain subjects are brought up, since there’s a notion that something can only be properly investigated when we have some kind of understanding of what it means. At the time, the character of Chance (or Chauncey Gardiner as he is known to his new acquaintances) was just described as a “simple” man – the film never implies that he has any discernible conditions or developmental disorders, but rather is just someone who views the world through a more childlike lens, where curiosity interweaves with an innate sense of wonder that is the result of being raised in a sheltered life, never having had the opportunity to become bitter and jaded by reality. It’s rarely a good idea to diagnose anyone without any qualifications, even if it is a fictional film character – but looking at Being There from a contemporary perspective, we’re struck by the possibility that this could be one of the first prominent depictions of autism in film, decades before discussions around the neurodivergent spectrum were being conducted as widely as they are today. Scientific research into autism was being done as early as the 1940s, but it was still an area on the fringes of mainstream inquiry, even at the time when Ashby was developing this film. As a result, the film is suspended between being very aware that there is a portion of the population who go through life being less socially aware and driven by particular areas of obsession, and not knowing the exact terminology to describe their experiences. The film subsequently evolves into something far more poetic and endearing as a result of this ambiguity, showing Chance as a man discovering the world, being pushed around by the harsh nature of reality without allowing it to dull his spark of genuine curiosity. It’s a wonderfully progressive film, to the point where it doesn’t even have to use the words that we’d utilise today to deliver the same message, which only makes it more of a marvel to see the sincerity simmering at the heart of the film.

The foundation of Being There – and the reason it has persisted all these years – is the presence of Peter Sellers, whose performance is appropriately considered not only a personal peak in his career, but also one of the greatest ever committed to film. Once we see his work in motion, it’s truly difficult to argue with this sentiment, since what he is doing is truly unmatched. Unfortunately, we have a long lineage of actors playing neurodivergent people who tend to play to the rafters in a way that is profoundly unsettling and frankly quite bizarre, but at no point does Sellers aim for the low-hanging fruit. This is particularly impressive considering he had a reputation for aiming for the cheap seats in a lot of his films (but in a way that was often very effective, since it became part of his brand), so to see him showing such extraordinary restraint is fascinating. The problem with Sellers was that he delivered so many tremendous performances over the course of his career, each one starkly different, that he never quite found a single performance that we can consider to be his crowning achievement, although the consensus falls between The Pink Panther, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and this film – and as incredible as his work in the first two may be (not to mention massively influential), it is Being There that sees Sellers at his best, playing into the inherent curiosity that often guided his work, turning a relatively simple premise into something so simple. He never overplays any scene, veers as far away from unnecessary slapstick as possible, and focuses on finding the heart of the character, who is a far more nuanced individual under his careful curation. He’s joined by Shirley MacLaine and Melvyn Douglas as the married couple who enter into Chance’s orbit, and who become unofficial guardians to the impressionable man, who inadvertently instils a sense of whimsy in their lives, showing them that there is more to being alive than just going through the same motions. They pale in comparison to Sellers’ monumental performance, but they are still exceptional, delivering nuanced, deliberately compelling work that is so much more endearing than anyone would have initially expected. It’s a wonderful film that depends on its actors to bring something new to the material, and the results are absolutely exquisite.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Being There is its undying compassion. In the hands of another filmmaker, the story of a simple-minded man making his way into the upper echelons of society by no effort of his own could’ve been atrociously flippant and one-dimensional, especially since it has a subject that could’ve gone in many different directions, so it all came down to how Ashby chose to approach the material. He was a director who had a wide set of talents, each one of his films reflecting a different aesthetic, tone and style, so it could’ve gone in many different ways. The path that he chooses is a truly empathetic film that skirts around the edges of sentimentality without becoming too heavy-handed or unnecessarily dense. There’s an inherent saccharine quality that this film goes to great lengths to avoid, refusing to aim for the most obvious emotions, since everyone involved knew that they were dealing with something with so much more potential, more than could be condensed into a single, one-dimensional layer. Ashby’s ability to tell moving stories without resorting to the usual hackneyed techniques is one of the main reasons he is such a celebrated filmmaker – how else can someone explore subjects like death, identity and the feeling of being isolated in a hostile world, while also managing to make the story funny, heartfelt and frequently compelling, much more than we would expect based on a cursory glance? Being There is a simpler affair – there are shades of ambiguity that bind throughout the film, but they’re truly just there to add flavour rather than to limit the story, which is surprisingly concise given the material with which they are working. At no point does it feel like we’re being emotionally manipulated, forced to feel certain sensations, which is quite a marvel considering the nature of this film and the ideas with which it is working. There’s something truly captivating about how the director (as well as the screenwriter – Kosiński deserves credit, since it is a tall task to take as challenging a novel as he wrote and successfully bring it to life on screen) takes such a straightforward premise and turns it into something that functions on multiple levels, being far more engaging and entertaining than we would have initially expected.

Considering the adulation it has received over the past few decades, one would be forgiven for tempering their expectations when it comes to a film like Being There, which has established itself as a canonical work that has been so massively celebrated that it is easy to expect it to be just another case of a film whose reputation far outweighs its actual merits. Taken for what it is (which is all the film intends to be – there’s not moment where it strives to be more ambitious than it knew it could be, which is the exact kind of self-awareness we see in many of Ashby’s best works), we see that it is simply a story of a man who sees the world as being inherently wonderful – there’s no situation in which his direct, unfurnished philosophy, derived from years of being a gardener, cannot be used to describe the outside environment, proving to be aspirational to a wide audience that only becomes bigger and more captive the further he is pushed into the spotlight. It could have been hopelessly tacky and frankly lacking in any nuance, but this would have removed all the merit from Being There, which thrives on how it subverts and challenges expectations, far beyond the confines with which we are used to seeing these stories being told. Anchored by a generational performance from the always brilliant Sellers, written with sharp wit by a screenwriter whose words carry so much meaning, and directed with incredible precision by a filmmaker who always saw the value in the simplest of stories, its not surprising that this film has come to be seen as a defining piece of American media, a quiet but ferocious satire that seamlessly blends comedy and drama in a way that is nothing short of exhilarating. It more than earns its place in the canon and proves to be an absolute sensation in both style and substance, being one of the most unique and engaging works from its era, and a film as resonant today as it was nearly half a century ago.