Amazon.com Essentials:
John Guare's hit Broadway play--about an Upper East Side
couple
who gets bilked by a young black man claiming to be Sidney Poitier's
son--receives a terrific screen translation in this film by Fred Schepisi.
Though the play was discursive and episodic, Schepisi, working from
Guare's adaptation, makes it all flow like a fascinating evening
listening to friends recount something that happened to them. But the
story itself is also intriguing for the disparity it reveals between
the wealthy, the would-be wealthy, and the have-nots yearning to be rich.
Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland are exceptional as the couple
who open their home to a young man they believe is a friend of their
children (to whom they barely speak); Will Smith is fascinatingly glib
as the young man, who claims that his famous father is casting a film
version of Cats and offers his hosts roles as extras in the film.
Smith finds the heartbreaking core of this character and Channing is
haunting as a woman looking to make a connection, even with a confused
young con artist.
--Marshall Fine
