Peter Sellers gives a nuanced and moving performance as a childlike gardener who inadvertently becomes a Washington insider. Jerzy Kosinski's adaptation of his own novel touches on themes of death and rebirth, the emptiness of political rhetoric, and the power of television. This sad and funny movie serves as a fitting coda to the career of its star, who would make just one more (sadly forgettable) film before his death the following year.

Tony Peltier