Daniel

E.L. Doctorow adapted his 1971 novel The Book of Daniel for this handsomely mounted drama directed by Sidney Lumet. Inspired by the real-life case of executed atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (and the lives of their children), the complicated, melancholy, slow-burn story didn't connect with Reagan-era audiences when it was initially released in 1983. Timothy Hutton stars as Daniel Isaacson, a graduate student during the Vietnam War whose mother and father (Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse) were fiery New York Jewish members of the American Communist Party, put to death in the electric chair during the McCarthy era on charges of passing nuclear secrets to the U.S.S.R. While Daniel uses aloof intellectualism to cope, his younger sister's (Amanda Plummer) obsession and rage has turned her into an unstable, suicidal, drugged-up radical. Daniel delves into his parents' arrest and trial, ostensibly to help his sibling but more obviously as a narrative device to trigger flashbacks that revisit the infamous semi-fictionalized case of the Rosenbergs. Excellent performances all around and a strong period atmosphere serve to enhance this often powerful story of loss. Recommended. (C. Cassady)