THE DESIGNATED MOURNER Movie Review

In an unnamed country in the not-too-distant future, a bourgeois couple (Mike Nichols and Miranda Richardson) find the tensions of their marriage strained to the breaking point when a brutal, fascist regime tightens its grip on their privileged, intellectual world. A straightforward record of the 1995 London stage production of a play by Wallace Shawn (better known as an actor in films like My Dinner with André and Clueless), The Designated Mourner was directed by another playwright, David Hare, with the goal of recreating the power and claustrophobia of the original theatrical experience. He achieved that goal, and then some. The three person cast, which includes David de Keyser in addition to Nichols and Richardson, is seated on a stage, directly facing the camera as they speak. They talk of the day-to-day experience of having their rights and dignity stripped away, and soon Nichols's character becomes the center of attention. He draws us in with his easy and confessional manner, but gradually we're chilled as we understand how an intelligent, seemingly decent human being can rationalize his own monstrous behavior until he sees it as not only not monstrous, but as a welcome relief from the hypocrisy of caring about others. Shawn and Nichols provide us with a window onto one of the greatest mysteries, how portions of some of civilization's most “enlightened” populations—such as Germany's during World War II—were and are able to rationalize behavior that seems to us unimaginable. Nichols's character isn't a monster; he's a charming and witty man whose monstrous behavior is a part of human nature, and that's what makes him more terrifying than any tentacled, digitized special effect. All the performances are fine, but Mike Nichols's is beyond that. He's a superb director, but judging from this performance—his screen debut—we've been missing out on his real talent all these years.

NEXT STOP … Shame (Bergman), Fires on the Plain, The Sorrow and the Pity

1997 (R) 94m/C GB Mike Nichols, Miranda Richardson, David de Keyser; D: David Hare; W: Wallace Shawn; C: Oliver Stapleton; M: Richard Hartley. VHS NYR