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Actors: William H. Macy, Laura Dern, David Paymer, Meat Loaf
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Focus |
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After serving his country in the Great War, Lawrence Newman (Macy) has lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood and worked as a personnel director at the same company for 20 years. During the Second World War, anti-Semitism is quietly on the rise in the neighborhoods and in the workforce. Newman himself passes on a job applicant, Gertrude Hart (Dern) because she looks Jewish. Then, much to his consternation, everyone begins to regard Newman as Jewish the day he gets a pair of glasses. Things get worse when he meets Gertrude again and ends up marrying her. He ends up losing his job, and things get nasty in his neighborhood, especially with his beefy, bigoted next-door neighbor Fred (Meat Loaf). A Jewish store owner on the corner becomes the focus of all his neighbors' hatred, and Newman has to decide where he stands and what he will do. This 2001 film, based closely on Arthur Miller's novel, was director Neal Slavin's and screenwriter Kendrew Lascelles's first feature, and a very accomplished and unnerving piece of work it is. Macy is superb as a quiet wimpy guy who minds his own business until circumstances force him to do otherwise, and Dern (about whom I've not been that fond) is surprisingly strong as well. The dream-like quality of Miller's short novel is reproduced in vibrant, "more-real-than-real" sets and colors, but otherwise this is a tight, un-histrionic tale.
--David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Focus |
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Time/era of movie:
- 1930's-1950's
Ethnic/Regional/Gender story?
Yes
Main Char. ethnic: (if not US Caucasian)
- Jew, regular
Culture clash?
- being oppressed by outside culture
Culture of surrounding area:
- American Northeast
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- business executive
Age:
- 40's-50's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- blonde
Hair type
- (man) short/standard straight
Body type
- (man) average
Events of movie makes character more...
- tougher
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Average intelligence
Physique
- average physique
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Hair color
- blonde
Hair style
- (woman) medium/shoulderlgn wavey
Unclothed?
- very tight clothes
How much in movie?
- 60%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
Main Adversary
Identity:
- Male
Age:
- 40's-50's
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- 40%
Body type
- (man) fat
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- mean, arrogant
Sense of humor
- Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence
- Dumb
Physique
- bulging muscles
Setting
United States
Yes
The US:
- Northeast
City?
Yes
City:
- New York
Style
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
Movie makes you feel...
- concerned
Sex/nudity in movie?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- sex under blankets
Any profanity?
- Occasional swearing
Is this movie based on a
- book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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