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Focus

2001, Movie, PG-13, 104 mins

Focus: Review

FOCUS
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A handsomely mounted but dramatically leaden adaptation of Arthur Miller's searing 1948 novel about anti-Semitism in a deceptively quiet Brooklyn neighborhood during WWII. Passive, middle-aged Lawrence Newman (William H. Macy) lives quietly with his invalid mother (Kay Hewtrey) on a tidy street where all the houses and their inhabitants look comfortably alike. When the relatives of Jewish candy-store owner Mr. Finkelstein (David Paymer) start moving in, Newman doesn't particularly like it, but he isn't ready to do anything about it either. He'll leave that ugly business to folks like his next-door neighbor, Fred (Meat Loaf Aday), and the Union Crusaders, a concerned-citizens group dedicated to keeping Jews in line and out of Christian neighborhoods. But Newman's quiet life is turned upside-down when his boss (Joseph Ziegler) insists Newman gets a pair of eyeglasses to correct his deteriorating vision; the glasses Newman chooses makes him look, in the words of his mother, Jewish. And she's not the only one who seems to think so. Newman wakes up one morning to find his garbage scattered across his front lawn, and when a company V.P. gets a look at Newman in his new specs, Newman finds himself out of a job. At a time when "Gentiles Only" regularly appeared in Help Wanted ads, the only place that will consider hiring Newman is a Jewish-owned publishing house. There, Newman runs into Miss Gertrude Hart (Laura Dern), a brassy blonde with a Lower East Side address whom Newman himself once turned down for a job on account of her "Semitic" looks, despite her angry insistence that she's an Episcopalian. Newman lands both the job and Miss Hart. They're soon married, but his temporary matrimonial bliss only makes matters worse. In a world in which "you are what you look like," it's obvious to Fred that Newman has gone and gotten himself a Jewish girl. First-time feature director Neal Salvin is a celebrated still photographer and it comes as no surprise that nearly every frame of his is exquisite. The film is rich in period detail and a keen visual sense of irony, but it's curiously static; scenes that blister the pages of Miller's novel barely move. Kendrew Lascelles's screenplay attempts to add some depth to Gertrude by softening Miller's merciless portrayal of her as an evil anti-Semite. But even that ultimately works against the film: Both she and Lawrence are ennobled far more than either deserves. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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