YMMV / The Swimmer

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • To what extent is Ned responsible for his life's downward spiral? It's shown that he had an affair that may or may not have been the reason his wife left him, and he's implied to be a heavy drinker, but it's unclear whether the drinking was the cause or the consequence of the problems in his life. Furthermore, most of Ned's friends and neighbors have the same moral failures (or worse) as Ned himself, so it's quite possible that much of what happened to Ned was due to bad luck and/or mental illness.
  • Is Ned a ghost who doesn't realise he's died? He appears out of nowhere, he doesn't realise how much his surroundings have changed, people are surprised he when he turns up.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: It has way too much against it, including an apparently mentally ill protagonist and a plot that attacks the American dream, an adaptation of a virtually unknown short story and finally a lot of scenes of people being awkward around said protagonist. The one selling point that marketers probably were banking on was Burt Lancaster being a Walking Swimsuit Scene Mr. Fanservice.
• Retroactive Recognition: Joan Rivers makes her film debut.
• Values Dissonance: There's no way a modern film could feature a scantily-clad, mentally unstable man bonding with a young boy whose parents aren't around and trying to persuade him to come with him, at least not without deliberately portraying it as creepy.
• The Woobie: Kevin, the boy selling lemonade who Ned "teaches" how to swim. His parents travel the world and leave him alone at home except for the maid. It's especially sad to see Kevin's reaction when Ned has to leave - it's clear that Ned's brief act of friendship is the closest thing he's experienced to a parent figure in a long time.