Synopsis
Jack and Judy are husband and wife, and Howard is Judy's father. They live in some fictional undemocratic and repressive country, and tell us a story about their lives, mostly from Jack's point of view.
The Designated Mourner
1997 Directed by David Hare
Director
Producers
Executive Producers
Writer
Original Writer
Editor
Cinematography
Production Design
Art Direction
Composer
Hairstyling
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical
-
USA
Releases by Country
USA
23 May 1997
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
More-
Judging by the singular review on this website, I'd say that this is now one of the least-watched films that I adore. I recently read a few of Wallace Shawn's plays and was particularly bewitched by this one, which to me seems like a synthesis of his works that came before it. Shawn is known for his comically nasal voice and distinct appearance, which makes a fun contrast with the sophisticated, raw intelligence in his writing. His subject is usually how the psychology is tied to societal structures, the ways our thinking is carefully shaped so that we remain within the toxic boundaries of class or sex or whatever else, and in his plays these tensions passively erupt in grotesque,…
-
Okay here’s what’s been up with Wallace Shawn and myself over the last 24 hours. I couldn’t sleep last night so I started reading the copy of Evening at the Talk House I brought home with me. And I really connected with it (in a way I feel like I don’t normally connect with self consciously political plays [because a lot of plays in New York that identify as political are actually aggressively apolitical but anyway]) and it also freaked me out and filled me with dread so I still couldn’t sleep. So I listened to the audio drama version that the off Broadway cast made and was still filled with dread but it got me thinking about what kinds…
-
-
-
Mike Nichols is a better actor than director. simply one of the best performances I have ever seen on film. hard to watch this without thinking of My Dinner with Andre, one of my favorite movies ever, but this one is just as good. Maybe better
-
-
I appreciated the important, timely insights and general intent of this piece, and I'm sympathetic to the struggles of the wanna-be/self-loathing artist/intellectual around high/low culture and I'm even down to follow along with the suggested political ramifications of these lines of thought, but I could barely hang with the wall to wall overwrought purple prose jibber jabber - its only Mike Nichols immense talent and presence as an actor that allowed me to at all feel these too-clever words actually connected to a believable, human emotional core - but for the most part I was resisting the (low brow??) urge to roll my eyes at the asides within asides and too-many-adverb metaphors though I got more than a few nice…
-
Almost impossible to find - very old DVD, ancient transfer with barebones late 1990s graphics. Feels essential in any discussion of Nichols. Worth the search
-
Mike gives a great performance, but the way he said "fucking bitch" gave me a bit of a laugh
-
-
Instead of directing crap like What Planet Are You From? and Regarding Henry, Mike Nichols should have just kept acting.
-
