The Humbling

The Humbling (2014)

Older but not wiser.

Following a breakdown and suicide attempt, an aging actor becomes involved with a much younger woman but soon finds that it's difficult to keep pace with her.

Date of release
2014-12-31
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (158)
Runtime
1h 52m
Genres
Drama, Comedy
Director
Barry Levinson

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Humbling

The Humbling is a 2014 American comedy-drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Buck Henry and Michal Zebede, based on the 2009 novel by Philip Roth. The film stars Al Pacino, Greta Gerwig, Dianne Wiest, Nina Arianda, Dylan Baker, Charles Grodin, Dan Hedaya, Billy Porter, Kyra Sedgwick and Mary Louise Wilson.

Production

After reading and connecting with the Philip Roth book, Al Pacino decided to option the book and asked Barry Levinson to direct it. Levinson decided to make the movie as a dark comedy, noting, "If you want to talk about an older actor in decline, just to do it as some straight drama didn’t seem that intriguing to me", also citing that comedy "seemed to me inherent in the piece".

Although the film had ample funding in the beginning, the listed conditions became too much for Levinson, who rejected them and lost, by his estimate, "somewhere in the area of $6 million". Subsequently, it was decided to shoot the film incrementally, with several breaks to accommodate Pacino's schedule. This was a new experience for Levinson, although he welcomed the change of pace, as "it added to the clarity".

On February 4, 2014, it was announced that Millennium Films had acquired the worldwide rights to the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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