I've never really seen anything like Vanya on 42nd Street.
Comment
01/01/00
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)
87
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:31
Fresh:27
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: Beautiful performances and the subtle hand of master Louis Malle make this adaptation of Chekov's Uncle Vanya an eccentric presentation of an enduring classic.
Runtime: 1 hr 59 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: David Mamet wrote the screenplay for this staging of Andre Gregory's play, "Vanya," itself based on Chekhov's masterpiece, "Uncle Vanya." A group of actors enter a theatre on New York's 42nd Street... [More]
Starring: Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, George Gaynes, Brooke Smith
Director: Louis Malle
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Reviews for Vanya on 42nd Street
Despite great acting, the general impression of the film is underwhelming.
12/22/03
The overall effect of Uncle Vanya on 42nd Street is that one has just experienced something truly timeless.
01/01/00
Vanya on 42nd Street may be the most innovative and successful straight film adaptation of any play.
01/01/00
Top CriticA film which reduces Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" to its bare elements: loneliness, wasted lives, romantic hope and despair. To add elaborate sets, costumes and locations to this material would only dilute it.
01/01/00
Top CriticA lovely, intimate rethinking of Anton Chekhov's Russian classic Uncle Vanya.
01/01/00
Top CriticThe performances here are all knockouts, with a perfect ensemble cast, and Malle, using subtle moviemaking technique, keeps things moving so that we hardly realize we are stagebound for nearly two hours.
01/01/00
In terms of dramatic action, almost nothing happens, and yet Malle's fluid, invisible style carries us deep into the hearts and minds of these characters.
01/01/00
Top CriticAmore traditional performance with the same actors would have gotten a higher rating.
01/01/00
The elegant understatement of this production turns it into a livelier experiment, a fluent, gripping version of one of Chekhov's more elusive plays.
05/20/03
Top CriticThe 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.
08/12/08
Top CriticEven if you don't get everything there is to get, it's an incredibly unique film worth seeing.
01/01/00
Vanya on 42nd Street is a superior interpretation of a fantastic play, but I couldn't quite shake the conviction that I really should have seen it on 42nd Street.
01/01/00
It is not a happy movie, but it is a very thought provoking one.
01/01/00
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.
08/12/08
Top CriticIt offers a unique viewing at a work in progress.
11/06/07
This live-wire Vanya, freshly observed for the '90s, is fiercely funny, touching and vital.
05/12/01
Top CriticIt's more than a worthy capper to Malle's brilliant career.
10/04/02
here are moments of considerable power here but this stripped-down rendering gives us something closer to a latterday dysfunctional family than Chekhov's doomed bourgeoisie.
08/12/08
There's more power here than in all the multi-million dollar fireworks of Hollywood.
01/26/06
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