The Designated Mourner

Wallace Shawn is best known to American filmgoers as a first-rate character actor (The Princess Bride, Vanya on 42nd Street, etc.), but he's also, in his quiet, unassuming way, one of the country's most daring and controversial playwrights, specializing in devil's-advocate exercises that challenge the complacency of the genteel folk who can still afford to attend the theater. This adaptation of his play is essentially an extended monologue delivered directly to the camera by director (and, lest we forget, former comic) Mike Nichols, whose simultaneously engaging and disturbing performance is its greatest strength--I enjoyed his work here more than any movie he's made since, oh, Carnal Knowledge (1971). But Shawn's scenario--a nightmare future in which the fine arts and those who care about them have been systematically eliminated, as cheerfully and cogently defended by proud lowbrow Nichols--is less provocative and challenging than it might have been; and while Spalding Gray can get away with not budging from his chair for 90 minutes in what is allegedly a motion picture, it's still a generally inadvisable choice for this particular medium. Worthy, but dull, this is not a necessary purchase. (M. D'Angelo)