Vanya on 42nd Street

In New York, the cast of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" rehearse the play in a dilapidated theater on the 42nd Street.The arrogant and selfish Professor Serybryakov (George Gaynes) is an elderly intellectual married with his gorgeous and younger second wife Yelena (Julianne Moore) that feels trapped in a prison with her marriage.

If you aren't willing to sit through Chekov, stay away but otherwise, find this and feast!! It is so moving and wondrous.

If you are familiar with the play, you will marvel at the subtlety of the transition - from Monday-morning chatter about the weekend's activities among the cast members who have gathered for a rehearsal - to the play itself: Suddenly the dialog among the actors becomes identical with the lines in the play, the actors have, unbeknownst to viewers who haven't seen or read the play a few times, taken on their roles and begun the rehearsal/performance, a device which makes the action seem all the more authentically real and human. An interesting comment made to me by a Russian author(ess) whom I know: At the end when Sonya tells Uncle Vanya that in the bye and bye everything will be alright ("God will take pity on us...

Like My Dinner With Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street sucks the viewer into what is at first a boring environment, but by the end of the film an emotional whirlpool. Based on Andre Gregory's interpretation of Chekhov's play, the timeless characters each represent their own reality, and the pain of that reality.

Before I first saw this movie late last year Wallace Shawn was a nobody to me. I had seen him in various bit parts usually as a character actor and I never liked him.

Okay, okay. Now that I've got that out of my system, I can actually review the movie.

There's no shortage of intelligent work in film. But here we have one of the most complexly referential things I've ever seen.

First, full disclosure: I've seen Uncle Vanya performed by the Bolshoi Theater, and have read the play over a dozen times, in the original Russian. It is dear to me, and I have some rather definite ideas about what it is, and what it should be.

I'm baffled by all the praise this film has received.I'm guessing the director's choice to forego sets and costumes was intended to enable the actors and audience to focus in on and explore the inner world of the characters.