Being There

Being There (1979) is a satirical comedy-drama directed by Hal Ashby — watch online on iFILM. Chance the gardener has spent his entire life tending a Washington D.C. estate, with television as his only window onto the outside world. When his employer dies and he's turned out onto the street, he knows nothing about how anything works.

A limousine accident lands him in the home of powerful businessman Benjamin Rand and his wife Eve. Washington's political class mistakes his garden metaphors for philosophy and his silences for wisdom. Peter Sellers plays Chance with an unsettling, perfectly calibrated blankness — the performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Melvyn Douglas, as the dying patriarch who sees through Chance and still chooses to befriend him, picked up the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Adapted from Jerzy Kosinski's novel, the film ages in a particular way: the satire about powerful people projecting meaning onto a blank slate keeps finding new targets. Shirley MacLaine rounds out the central trio. Stream Being There (1979) online on iFILM.