You're going through six degrees of separation. Still fascinating for its premise and worth a look even this watered-down version never fails to entertain.You're doing all these things out of desperation, And the emotional blow that comes at the end of the play when you realize that Oiusa's perfect marriage is falling apart just doesn't come across. But John Cunningham, who played the role on Broadway, was sharper, harder, a GAMBLER.Sutherland just comes across as a nice guy that gets a bit upset that he's been conned. The other problem I had with it was Donald Sutherland who wasn't half-bad. The transition from a verbal to a visual medium robs the language of much of its power, and rather than re-write it as a movie, it's sort of a 'half-transition,' which doesn't really please anyone. Smith does a good-to-great job with this character.
#The scriptsix degrees of separation movie#
Whereas the play is a spoken confessional of Oiusa Kitteridge, the movie emphasizes Paul (Will Smith). Unfortunately the translation to film is only partially successful. It's John Guare's mastery of the language at its best, better than "The House of Blue Leaves." I'm much more of a movie person than a theater person, but this play really sang. The dialogue goes like the wind and you barely get a chance to catch your breath some of the dialogue is spoken as a soliloquy. It's really the story of her character Ouisa gradually seeing that her life is just pretty surfaces, and in meeting this young con-man with whom she makes an intense emotional connection, that she wants more than her marriage, her friends, her life.
I saw Stockard Channing do this play on Broadway, and it remains one of the best theater experiences ever. In that search, Ouisa in particularly starts to critically study their lives and how much compassion they actually have. Their encounter with him ends up being an all-too-familiar story that leads them on a search for him after he leaves their house the next morning. After tending to his wounds, the Kittredges invite him to stay the night. Beyond the attraction of talking Paul into getting them roles in the movie, Ouisa, Flan, and Geoffrey all end up being captivated by Paul's charm, charisma, pedigree, and eloquence. Tomorrow, Paul is meeting up with his father, who is in town directing a movie of "Cats". He was a friend of the Kittredges' children, who are attending Harvard more importantly, he's the son of actor and Director Sidney Poitier. The young man, Paul Poitier (Will Smith), had just arrived in the city when he was mugged outside their building, he sported a minor knife wound to the abdomen. They relay a story to their friends and acquaintances that becomes legendary over time: their encounter with a young black stranger who came stumbling upon their front door one evening as they were courting Geoffrey Miller (Sir Ian McKellen), an important investor who could make them wealthy beyond their dreams.
Their prized possession is a double-sided Kandinsky: one side represents control the other, chaos. New Yorkers Louisa "Ouisa" Kittredge (Stockard Channing) and John Flanders "Flan" Kittredge (Donald Sutherland) are upper-class private art dealers, pretentious, but compassionate.