Reception
Critical reception of the film has wavered between seeing the film as light entertainment or a political statement: "Calling the 1969 film a comedy misses its noir backbeat of betrayed romanticism, and thinking of it as a madcap autobiography misses its politics. This is a movie driven by the military draft and the Vietnam War."
When interviewed in 1971, the film's director, Arthur Penn, said of the film: "What I tried to deal with is the US's silence and how we can best respond to that silence. ... I wanted to show that the US is a country paralyzed by fear, that people were afraid of losing all they hold dear to them. It's the new generation that's trying to save everything."
In being offered the opinion that violence is not so important in the film, Penn replied: "Alice's Restaurant is a film of potential transition because the characters know, in some way, what they are looking for. ... It's important to remember that the characters in Alice's Restaurant are middle-class whites. They aren't poor or hungry or working class. They are not in the same boat as African Americans. But they're not militants either. In this respect the church dwellers are not particularly threatening. They find it easy to live there, even if most people can't afford such a luxury. From this point of view, this film depicts a very specific social class. It's a bourgeois film."
However, other commentators have pointed out that there is indeed violence in the film, but of an unexpected kind, domestic violence. Alice is very often beaten by her husband, Ray – something which the others do not even react to. Ray's repeated request to Alice for them to start over again shows her in the role of a battered partner. The film ends with the wedding guests leaving and Ray and Alice trying to persuade them to stay. The final scene is not of a loving couple seeing off their guests, but of Alice standing alone looking into the distance, watching the guests leave, as if knowing that her future is in fact bleak with Ray.
The film grossed $6,300,000 in the United States, making it the 15th highest grossing film of 1969.
Read more about this topic: Alice's Restaurant (film)
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