Vanya On 42nd Street (1994)
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88% of critics liked it
(34 reviews) -
75% of users liked it
(1,294 ratings)
In the late 1980s, noted theatrical director Andre Gregory assembled a group of friends and actors and began rehearsing a new translation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya by David Mamet, not with any specific performance in mind but as a way of exploring the beauty and precise construction of… More In the late 1980s, noted theatrical director Andre Gregory assembled a group of friends and actors and began rehearsing a new translation of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya by David Mamet, not with any specific performance in mind but as a way of exploring the beauty and precise construction of Chekhov's play. Louis Malle, a friend of Gregory's, became interested in the project and spent two weeks filming Gregory's actors as they performed Uncle Vanya without an audience in a run-down theater near New York's Times Square. In these performances, the line between theater and real life is blurred as conversations between actors -- juggling take-out cups of coffee and wearing street clothes -- slowly grow into a superb performance of Chekhov's classic, with Wallace Shawn as Vanya, Julianne Moore as Yelena, Brooke Smith as Sonya, and Larry Pine as Dr. Astrov. With a certain sad irony, this marvelously realized adaptation of a play about people wondering what they've done with their lives proved to be Louis Malle's final film; he died of cancer in 1995. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Directed By
- Louis Malle
- Written By
- Anton Chekhov, David Mamet
- Genres
- Drama, Comedy, Special Interest
PG,
- In Theaters
- Jun 1, 1995 Wide
- Studio
- Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Critic Reviews
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Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
It's amazing it has taken Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory, and director Louis Malle more than 10 years to collaborate again. It was worth the wait, though.
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Todd McCarthy, Variety
The performances are precise, the language is alive and well spoken and the setting is striking, but Vanya on 42nd Street still suffers rather heavily from the limitations of filmed theater.
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Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Malle adeptly eases us into the play so we can't tell at what precise moment Chekhov takes over, an ambiguity that becomes the film's triumph as well as its key limitation.
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, Time Out
There's more power here than in all the multi-million dollar fireworks of Hollywood.
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Janet Maslin, New York Times
The elegant understatement of this production turns it into a livelier experiment, a fluent, gripping version of one of Chekhov's more elusive plays.
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Cast
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Wallace Shawn
as Vanya
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Larry Pine
as Dr. Astrov
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Andre Gregory
as Himself
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Brooke Smith
as Sonya
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Julianne Moore
as Yelena
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Phoebe Brand
as Marina
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George Gaynes
as Serybryakov
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Jerry Mayer
as Waffles
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Madhur Jaffrey
as Mrs. Chao
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Lynn Cohen
as Maman
