The Slender Thread
* * 1/2
The continuing enigma of Sydney Pollack, who almost always is clueless as to what should be included in a movie and what should be excluded to make it good. He's a big fan of the mundane process, with no desire to make any of that process exciting. (It can't JUST be process. It MUST also be mundane.)
At its core we have a two-handed thriller about a crisis volunteer (Sidney Poitier) who gets a phone call from a possible suicide attempt (Anne Bancroft). It's a theatrical idea, even more so because of Poitier's mannered physicality. Few actors speak so much dialogue with their arms and hands. What funny is for all that hard work, Poitier's greatest gift is his face. His expressions are terrific.
During the phone calls, the camera stays with him while Bancroft remains a voice. It hits the familiar beats. Center square on my Bingo card of predictions was where Poitier gets frustrated and dares Bancroft to stop wasting everyone's time and just do it already. (Of course, you have to have that scene. It gives the film variety.)
All the good acting moments happen in the first half, letting the drama peter out with procedure (trying to trace the call) and motivation. The motivation, what drives Bancroft to suicide is the one aspect where the movie straight up fails. It's hitched to an outrage of a reveal followed by a lot of piety spewed out by Steven Hill as Bancroft's cold husband. Hill doesn't get to play a character, just a moral position. Either way he's terrible.