Peter Pluymers "Cause...normally, it's...you know, the parents takes care of the kid. Not really the other way around." After watching "Time out of mind" I felt pity and at the same time a kind of relief coming over me. I pitied George who tries to escape the cold daily by hiding in the waiting room of a hospital or just riding the subway through New York. Pity because he always has to find himself a new coat to withstand the freezing cold because he traded his last one in a pawnshop for a bit of cash again. Pity because usually this money is needed to buy some cheap alcohol. Pity because it's difficult for homeless people to pick up the thread again or to be in order with the bureaucratic whirligig. And in addition, I felt this relief because I'm not living in such a hopeless situation and I don't need to struggle for survival all the time. Relieved because I do possess what these homeless people are missing.My greatest admiration goes out to Richard Gere who succeeded seemingly effortlessly in changing into a person who's standing on the precipice of society. Despite George's unshaven and scruffy appearance, you still can catch a glimpse of Gere's good looks and seductive gaze at times. Even the social assistant who interviews him notices that. But Gere wasn't the most obvious choice in my opinion. It's the most contrarian part he could play, compared to his previous acting. George is the opposite of the characters he played in "American Gigolo" and "Pretty Woman". As Gere himself in real life, these characters are wealthy and without deficiencies. And still Gere manages to come across as the poor man who can't find a way out of the vicious circle he finds himself in. In other words, I'm starting to like the actor Gere more and more. Maybe it has to do with his age. Just like in "The Benefactor" it's not an obvious role or something to get credits for in an easy way. The only weak point in "The Benefactor" was the story on its own. Gere's acting on the other hand was sublime and admirable.The story may seem rather long-winded, with a lot of boring intervals. However, it felt like the image sought to include George's everyday life. A useless existence with many moments where he's observing things expressionless, dozing off once and a while and patiently waiting until he can return to the safe city center for the homeless. Not that George stays there with conviction and pleasure. In his eyes, this is probably the low point in his sad life and he tried to avoid it as long as possible. The New York city life serves as a soundtrack. Bits of music you can hear from a random bar, followed by a random conversation held by a stranger on the phone or the loud music from a passing car. And this interspersed with images taken from afar out of different angles where we see George as a key figure in the center of this cacophony. A symbolic image that shows how insignificant he is as a person in this metropolis.You can hardly call this movie a real crowd puller. And many who saw it, will probably claim that it's slow and monotonous. And although that was also my first impression, the film gradually fascinated me more and more. It's been a long time since I enjoyed an interaction between two totally different people like the one here with George and Dixon (Ben Vereen), an ancien among the homeless whose blabbering starts to annoy George from the beginning. Everyone will recognize Ben Vereen from a TV movie, but he was really unrecognizable in this movie. Although the attempt to pick up the thread again when it concerns his daughter Maggie (Jena Malone), this part of the story seems to become less important in relation to the larger whole. The way the movie ends seems simplistic and minimalistic. And yet the end fits perfectly with the rest of the film. "Time out of mind" at least impressed me.More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

Howlin Wolf I admire what the film was trying to do, but all I got from it is that homelessness is a sad and unfortunate situation. I knew that before I watched the film; you don't need to take two hours to tell me that. I care about homelessness as a general issue, but if you're going to make me spend so much time with someone, then you need to give me a reason beyond his immediate circumstance to care about THIS particular person, and for all Gere's fine acting, I didn't feel that the film achieved that.Making a documentary about people who sleep rough would be so much more emotional than the cliché of Hollywood star being made to slum it, and trying to get us to buy into them reconnecting with their estranged family... All the innovative camera angles in the world can't disguise the thinness of the main story.

earthinspace-1 Brain slog happens out there. A well-made film shows and suggests with scenes that slip into the next like a dream, yet with all the gritty truth of doing what you have to do to cross the street without getting knocked over. The shelters I remember were different and still, this film captured them.Not wanting to say a lot of words right now. A lot of what's good in the film is what they don't say. There is silence for time to grok and drink in all the other stimuli, and there are toned-down dramatic pauses, as between notes of music.In response to some of the other comments -- You pegged it with some real writing in those comments & this film with references to mind-fog that's related to hunger, and the ambiance of being homeless all day and all night -- these are shown, felt, and quickly inhaled by the audience member who tunes in closely. There is a lot of there, there.

TxMike I found this movie on Netflix streaming, it has mixed reviews and wasn't sure I wanted to take the two hours to watch it. Having done so, I am glad that I did.Richard Gere, in his mid-60s, is George. It is clear that he has no place to call home. We don't know exactly how long he has been in this situation but he mentions that something occurred 10 years ago.He has developed a routine of sorts, he sometimes goes into the waiting room of a hospital or a bus station to escape the cold, even if it is temporarily. He changes coats often, because while few will give him money for booze it is somewhat easy to get a coat then sell it to a thrift shop for booze money.He also occasionally visits a food kitchen or gets a bed in a shelter. But he seems always in a daze of sorts and when he does take the time to have an agency help him get aid he has no ID and can't even remember his Social Security Number. At one point he meets up with Ben Vereen as Dixon, also homeless. We see them together most of the time, while George hardly ever says anything Dixon just can't shut up. Perhaps Dixon is a construct of George's imagination, we are not sure.George has an estranged daughter, 30-ish Jena Malone as Maggie. We are not told what exactly is the issue but George knows he has not been a good father.There is a ray of hope at the end, that George may be getting the help he needs to get back on his feet, and reestablish some sort of relationship with Maggie. Dixon disappears, which may be a sign of George's move towards sanity.The movie does not movie very fast and many will likely find it "slow and boring" but I never did. I am not far from George's age, I have encountered man like him in large cities over the years, it has always been puzzling how people end up that way.Of interest Gere does his own piano playing and wrote one of the pieces for the movie. Also Malone sings the final, haunting song during the end credits.