Swimming To Cambodia

A surprisingly compelling film adaptation of Spalding Gray's one-man, two-evening stage performance about his experiences in Cambodia while filming a small role in Roland Joffe's THE KILLING FIELDS. Director Jonathan Demme has boiled the original monologue down to 87 minutes that still manage to encompass everything from Gray's search for his "perfect" moment, to his adventures in Hollywood (where, among other things, he auditions for a TV show opposite Farrah Fawcett), to his grisly evocation of the reign of the Khmer Rouge, whom he at one point compares to upstate New York hicks. Gray is a spellbinding monologist, and Demme constructs a perfect, uncluttered showc...