Dreams in a fading resort
In 1980, Atlantic City was a city in transition. Its grand old hotels were decaying, its boardwalk was shabby, and legalised gambling was about to transform it into something louder, brighter, and less romantic. Louis Malle set his film in that in-between moment, and Susan Sarandon’s Sally Matthews is its beating heart: a young waitress in a casino restaurant who dreams of becoming a blackjack dealer in Monte Carlo, takes lessons in dealing at home, and washes lemons in her kitchen sink in one of the film’s most famous, oddly erotic images.
Sally is not a dreamer in the foolish sense. She is practical, hard-working, and clear-eyed about what she wants. She works nights, saves money, studies the cards, and endures a violent, controlling ex-husband who drifts back into her life with a stolen stash of cocaine. When she meets Lou, played by Burt Lancaster, a small-time numbers runner and former gangster who lives in her building and claims a glorious past he never quite had, an unlikely bond forms. Lou wants to be important again; Sally wants to escape. Sarandon and Lancaster play their scenes together with a tenderness that never turns sentimental.
A first Oscar nomination
Atlantic City earned Sarandon her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and it is easy to see why. Sally is on screen for much of the film, and Sarandon carries its emotional weight without ever pushing for effect. She is funny when Sally is practising her dealing patter, exhausted when she comes home from a long shift, frightened when her ex-husband threatens her, and quietly moved when Lou tries, in his bumbling way, to protect her. The performance is built from small, observed details: the way Sally holds a tray, the way she laughs at Lou’s stories even when she does not believe them, the way she looks out at the ocean as if it might offer an answer.
Malle directs with a European’s eye for American decay. The boardwalk, the empty hotel lobbies, the seagulls, and the winter light all contribute to a mood of elegy. Atlantic City is not a crime film, though crime intrudes; it is a film about people clinging to dreams in a place that has stopped believing in them. Sarandon understood that tone. She does not play Sally as a victim waiting to be rescued, nor as a tough girl who needs no one. She plays her as a woman who is doing her best, and whose best is considerable.
The lemon scene deserves its reputation. Sally, alone at home, washes lemons and rubs them on her skin, a ritual she believes will keep her hands soft for dealing cards. Malle films it without music and without commentary, and Sarandon performs it with total concentration. It is sensual without being salacious, and it tells us more about Sally’s hopes than any speech could. She is preparing herself, literally, for a better life, and the ordinariness of the lemons makes the dream feel both touching and attainable.
Lancaster, Sarandon, and an unlikely pair
The chemistry between Sarandon and Lancaster is one of the film’s great pleasures. Lancaster was in his late sixties, a Hollywood legend playing a man whose legend is mostly invention. Sarandon was in her early thirties, a rising actress playing a woman whose future is still unwritten. Their scenes together are gentle, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking. Lou teaches Sally nothing about cards, but he teaches her something about loyalty, and Sally gives Lou the one thing he has always wanted: someone who takes him seriously, if only for a moment.
Malle lets their relationship develop slowly, through shared meals, walks on the boardwalk, and small acts of kindness. There is no forced romance, no neat resolution. Sally leaves for Florida at the end, not Monte Carlo, and Lou watches her go, having finally done one genuinely brave thing. Sarandon plays Sally’s departure without melodrama. She is grateful, she is sad, and she is still moving forward. It is a perfect ending for a character who never stopped moving.
Atlantic City won praise around the world and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It also confirmed Sarandon as a serious dramatic actress, not just a cult star or a character player. After Pretty Baby and Atlantic City, no one could doubt her range. She had worked with one of cinema’s great directors twice, and she had held her own opposite one of its great stars.
Why Sally endures
Sally Matthews endures because she feels like a real working woman, not a movie idea of one. She has a job, a routine, a past she is trying to outrun, and a plan that is both modest and ambitious: to deal cards in a place where she will be respected. Sarandon never makes Sally’s dream look silly. She makes it look necessary. In a decade when many film heroines were defined by the men around them, Sally is defined by her own work and her own hope.
The film also captures a specific American moment — the end of the old Atlantic City and the beginning of the casino era — and Sally is its human face. She is caught between a decaying past and a glittering, uncertain future, and Sarandon plays that in-between state with grace. For Past Tunes readers who love films about ordinary people with extraordinary determination, Atlantic City is essential viewing, and Sally Matthews is one of Sarandon’s finest creations.
Watching Atlantic City again today, what stands out most is Sarandon’s patience. She never rushes Sally’s hope, never signals that the dream is foolish, and never lets the film’s sadness overwhelm its warmth. That balance is rare, and it is why Sally feels less like a character in a period film and more like someone you might still meet, working a late shift, counting her tips, and planning a braver tomorrow.