Amazon.com video review:
This stirring 1994 work by Louis Malle brought the legendary French
filmmaker into another collaboration with actors-writers-directors Andre
Gregory
and Wallace Shawn, scribes and stars of the great My Dinner with
Andre. The situation here is that Shawn and Gregory were participants
in a
years-long, informal project remounting a production of Chekhov's
Uncle Vanya every few months for select friends and the general
worthiness
of the idea. Wearing street clothes and strolling to a crumbling New
Amsterdam theater on Broadway, actors Shawn, Julianne Moore, George Gaynes,
Brooke
Smith, Larry Pine, Phoebe Brand, Lynn Cohen, and others would do a full
run of the text (as sharply translated by David Mamet) while a beaming
Gregory (the play's director) looked on. Malle--who died following this
film--spent a few days transforming the theatrical experiment into a viable
film that
maintained the company's unusual purpose and spirit. The result is
something between a narrative feature and a documentary about an acting
workshop,
and is both highly entertaining and cinematically enthralling. A terrific
final note in Malle's distinguished career, this is a must-see for anyone
who
cared about his work or who has a passion for Chekhov. --Tom Keogh
