Six Degrees of Separation
by Fred Schepisi
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Donald Sutherland, Ian McKellen, Mary Beth Hurt, Stockard Channing, Will SmithDirector: Fred Schepisi
Brand: CHANNING,STOCKARD
Cinematographer: Ian Baker
Producer: Fred Schepisi
Editor: Peter Honess
Producer: Arnon Milchan
Producer: Mary Pat Walsh
Producer: Ric Kidney
Writer: John Guare
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-08-15
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Six Degrees of Separation
Movie Review: No ending to an interesting story
Summary: 2 Stars
This movie is very well acted and it held my interest throughout. Donald Sutherland's character is insipid, which is, I suppose, what he is supposed to be, so I can't hold that against the actor. Stockard Channing is very real in her role, and Will Smith basically carries the movie on his shoulders even though he isn't in all of the scenes. He plays the role of an insane young man who pretends to be Sidney Poitier's son in order to wedge his way into the homes of wealthy people. He gives them quite a ride, and gives himself one as well. Obviously the story is farfetched, but not so farfetched as to be impossible. Perhaps someone from an inner city background could pull that off, though I doubt it. At the end we are informed that the Will Smith character is insane, as shown in a pathetic phone call from him to Stockard Channing in which he makes it clear that he actually believes himself to be who he is pretending to be. His deepest, and pathetic, desire is to be a member of that wealthy society.
This is a 4 or 5 star performance that ran into one of my biggest pet peeves in theatre, thereby dropping it to only 2 stars. It failed to tie up loose ends and give us an ending. We aren't told how it all turned out. We aren't told if Will Smith is even alive at the end, and we're led to believe he may have committed suicide. That's too big a loose end to leave dangling. We aren't told if Stockard Channing is able to re-establish contact with him.
If the movie industry wasn't in the habit of doing that to us, I'd perhaps consider it creative and original of them to leave us hanging on the ending, but they do it so often that it has become a cliche, and an annoying one. In that final scene, when Stockard Channing finally walks away from her empty shell of a husband, I realized that "they were doing it again" about the loose ends and failure to provide an ending, and I just said "roll the credits" because I knew they would. It was one of those scenes where they always roll the credits, in this case with Stockard Channing walking down a New York City street, away from her husband. It was such a predictable cliche.
In their sorry attempt at being creative with the ending, all they did was fall into a timeworn and extremely uncreative cliche. You just want to slap the director for pulling that nonsense on us. We have just given the director a couple of hours of our leisure time, and in turn we just received a slap in the face ourselves, not told how the story ends, not told if the character we have grown to care about is dead or alive.
Not good work. A fine movie ruined by a poor and unsatisfying and cliche ending.
Summary of Six Degrees of Separation
'the ultimate movie about the New York cult of class (Glamour), this rich and challenging cinematic treat (Playboy) is both a laugh-out-loud comedy and a biting social commentary about the separation between the 'haves and the 'have-nots. Will Smith gives a mightily impressive debut, Donald Sutherland is perfection and Oscar?(r)-nominated* Stockard Channing moves from brilliance to somewhere above and beyond brilliance (CBS-TV) in a story that's all the more amazing because it's true! Posing as the son of Sidney Poitier, Paul (Smith) deftly penetrates the world of art-dealing urbanites Ouisa and Flan Kittredge (Channing and Sutherland). But as Paul's web of dropped names and near fame begins to unravel, he provides his hosts with much more than just theultimate cocktail party anecdotehe sets in motion a series of events that will alter the course of their lives forever. *1993: ActressJohn Guare's hit Broadway play--about an Upper East Side couple who gets bilked by a young black man claiming to be Sidney Poitier's son--receives a terrific screen translation in this film by Fred Schepisi. Though the play was discursive and episodic, Schepisi, working from Guare's adaptation, makes it all flow like a fascinating evening listening to friends recount something that happened to them. But the story itself is also intriguing for the disparity it reveals between the wealthy, the would-be wealthy, and the have-nots yearning to be rich. Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland are exceptional as the couple who open their home to a young man they believe is a friend of their children (to whom they barely speak); Will Smith is fascinatingly glib as the young man, who claims that his famous father is casting a film version of Cats and offers his hosts roles as extras in the film. Smith finds the heartbreaking core of this character and Channing is haunting as a woman looking to make a connection, even with a confused young con artist. --Marshall Fine
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