Uncommunicative version of the Somerset Maugham novel, done in big, pallid, flabby images that have the general consistency of bread dough. Bill Murray's suppressed smirk, upward-floating irises, and nerdlike sloping shoulders amount to a highly coy substitute for Maugham's post-WWI seeker of enlightenment. Indeed, so determined is Murray to avoid conventional expressions of saintliness, and even to avoid any revelatory dialogue, that he comes across as hardly more than a disaffected drop-out who wants to experience "life" first-hand, acquaint himself with all the important books ("You've never read the Upanishads?" one of his newly acquired working-class cronies asks incredulously), and who ends up as your basic counter-culture liberal. Nowhere as corny as the 1946 version with Tyrone Power, but nowhere as pointed, either. Theresa Russell, Catherine Hicks, James Keach, Denholm Elliott; directed by John Byrum. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.