The Conversation (1974)
1974
PG
113 Minutes
The Conversation is a Francis Ford Coppola thriller from 1974 about a professional surveillance man who is hired to record the conversations between two workers. Yet it looks like he’s gotten int...
User Review
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WHAT I LIKED: On the one hand, Francis Ford Coppola's hugely overlooked 'The Conversation,' is an extremely engaging and in-depth character study about a man trapped in a spiral of regret and self-doubt, and on the other its story is used to create a neat commentary on the ethical dilemmas behind invading people's privacy. Yes this film follows a troubled surveillance expert on a mysterious job where his own problems and the themes behind the narrative begin to overlap and his invasive work starts to eat into him personally. This makes for something very interesting to watch, but what makes it so unbelievably engaging is largely Coppola's direction as he brilliantly manipulates the timeline so that we uncover the mystery with the central character as we equally begin to learn what's troubling him.
Those reveals are genuinely unexpected and expertly judged too, and when you couple that with a brilliantly understated central performance from Gene Hackman, you've got yourself a thoroughly nuanced piece of work that works both as an intricate character study as well as a thematic one.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: There are a few jarring moments such as the dream sequence that begin to take you out of the film to a degree.
VERDICT: One of Coppola's best and most overlooked pieces of work, 'The Conversation,' works on a character level and a thematic one as a thoroughly stripped-back, nuanced and engaging drama. That's something his Godfather films could only ever dream of...1 member likes this review.
