Sully is a tenant in the home of the elderly Miss Beryl, his 8th grade teacher, whose banker son Clive strongly urges her to kick him out and sell the house.

However, the deal unexpectedly falls through when the promoter turns out to be a con man, and Clive quietly skips town in shame since he used his bank's resources to help finance the amusement park.

[6] Bruce Willis reportedly agreed to a substantial pay cut to appear in the film, accepting the SAG-AFTRA scale of $1,400 per week at a time when the actor was earning roughly $15 million for his action movies.

Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 ½ out of 4 stars in his Movie Guide: "An irresistibly appealing Newman is surrounded by wonderful actors in this charmingly unpredictable character study..."[9] Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote: "Nobody's Fool is a gentle, flavorsome story of a loose-knit, dysfunctional family whose members essentially include every glimpsed citizen of a small New York town.

Fronted by a splendid performance from Paul Newman as a spirited man who has made nothing of his life, Robert Benton's character-driven film is sprinkled with small pleasures; the dramatic developments here don't take place in the noisy, calamitous manner that is customary these days.

A story about very real people caught in the everyday woes and worries of a small Upstate New York town, it shows the kind of character traits, tics and from-the-heart chatter you wish there was more of in the movies.

[11] Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader also wrote: "This is the first Robert Benton movie I've really liked — and possibly my favorite Paul Newman performance since The Hustler.

Conceived somewhat in the spirit of Chekhov's stories, Nobody's Fool ambles along semiplotlessly, focusing on the petty love-hatreds that link people together in small towns and the everyday orneriness that keeps them alive...it has both the poetry and the authenticity of failure.

He is so much a part of the landscape of modern American film that sometimes he is almost invisible: He does what he does with simplicity, grace and a minimum of fuss, and so I wonder if people even realize what a fine actor he is.

The site's consensus states: "It's solidly directed by Robert Benton and stacked with fine performances from an impressive cast, but above all, Nobody's Fool is a showcase for some of Paul Newman's best late-period work.