Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by David Mamet and Andre Gregory, based on Anton Chekov's Uncle Vanya
Directed by Louis Malle
Starring Julianne Moore, Wallace Shawn, Larry Pine, Andre Gregory, George Gaynes, Lynn Cohen, Phoebe Brand, Jerry Mayer, and Brooke Smith

Rating: PG

Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Rent it, or buy it if your angst threshold is high.

The framework for Vanya on 42nd Street is perhaps one of the more innovative film adaptations of a theatrical classic. Put simply (or as simply as possible), while Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn were hard at work doing their theatrical run of My Dinner with Andre, they, and other members of the NY theatre scene, kept their acting chops up with occasional performances of David Mamet's adaptation of the Anton Chekhov play Uncle Vanya. They would put on a performance every few months for a small group (usually less than ten) of interested viewers, in street clothes and on a bare stage, using only minimal props.

So Louis Malle sees this production, and decides it would make a great film. So he shows up for a performance with cameras and related gear, follows the cast and their audience to the theatre on a sunny afternoon, and captures what began as an acting exercise as it evolves into one of the finest performances of Chekhov to ever grace a stage. The scenes are shot in extremely long cuts, with few to no breaks or cutaways except between scenes. It's theatre stripped down to its bare core -- just a group of talented actors plying their craft at the highest level, for no other reason than to see it done and done well. It is a thing of beauty and a rare opportunity to see such a level of acting skill displayed.

The plot is simple, but the relationships between characters somewhat labrynthine. Basically, Yelena (Moore) has returned to the family estate of her elder husband Serybryakov (Gaynes). He is ill, and calls for his doctor (Pine) in the middle of the night, frequently only to send him away in a fit of pique. Said doctor, along with Vanya (Shawn) have fallen hopelessly in love (or lust, your call) with Yelena. Simultaneously, the crotchety old man's daughter has fallen in love with the doctor...who is also in love with his vodka bottle. And Vanya has fallen in love with his cynicism and fatalism (how Russian!), simultaneously eliciting pity and tragic fascination in Yelena. Got all that? Good. It doesn't get any simpler, really.

What this network of interactions does for the film is simple: it provides all the actors on stage with plenty of moments to shine. And none shine more brightly than Pine, Shawn, and Moore. Their bizarre relationship provides most of the quality bits of screen time, and Mamet's translation of Chekhov makes the dialogue absolutely pop. It's hard not to find yourself sucked into the tiny contained universe of the stage, and forget the lack of backdrop or props, blithely unaware of the absent theatrical trappings that usually make a play so immersive. In order to be fully immersed in this, all you need are the performances. They make everything else trivial and irrelevant.

As a theatrical exercise, the concept is a strange one. The fact that somebody decided to film it and release it as a motion picture even more so. But strangest of all is the fact that the whole thing hangs together and becomes infinitely watchable. The DVD treatment doesn't provide any extras, which is a shame as it was the last film Malle ever made, and these actors likely have quite a bit to share regarding not only the filmmaking process, but the whole "Vanya exercise" in general. Mamet's thoughts on the translation of the play would be interesting to hear, too, but this one just gets chalked up to a missed opportunity. Still worth a rental, and if you can stand classic Russian literary angst, you'd probably even watch it a second time.