Swimming to Cambodia

By rights, an 87-minute filmed monologue should be as stimulating as watching paint dry. Ah, but when the monologist is the brilliant Spalding Gray, then the audience is in for a cerebral feast. Based on his one-man Broadway presentation, Swimming to Cambodia is a mesmerizing account of Gray's ...more

There's nothing inherently cinematic about watching a man talk for 87 minutes. But Jonathan Demme's film version of Spalding Gray's one-man show works remarkably well, mainly because the director has enough respect for Gray's material to present it properly. Demme knows when to move in or pull back or shift the angle of his camera to match the rhythms of Gray's monologue; the photography breaks up the material visually but never calls attention to itself, much of the time simply staying put. ...more