An early novel by Arthur Miller becomes an outmoded message movie, set back in the Second World War to excuse its squareness, dealing with a middle-aged Presbyterian whose new spectacles make him "look Jewish." For some unapparent reason, his even newer blonde-bombshell wife (Laura Dern, a Marilyn Monroe figure, if you're influenced by Miller's presence in the equation, or an Anita Ekberg figure if you're swayed by her Dolce Vita plunge into a park pond) seals his reputation among his antisemitic neighbors. Our own inability to see what the neighbors see — and please don't try to say that that's the Whole Point — lends a kind of Kafka-esque abstractness to the thing, and a kind of absurdity. Not a good kind. William H. Macy, always adept at looking sat-upon and squashed, might have seemed more interestingly cast if he were sooner to rise above a doormat. The visual interest — geometrized compositions, heated-up Edward Hopper color, Venetian-blind shadows — is pretty relentless (director Neal Slavin is a noted still photographer), but it doesn't alter the movie's tunnel vision. David Paymer, Meat Loaf Aday. (2001) — Duncan Shepherd
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