Vanya on 42nd Street Reviews

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.

Full Review

Much too talky.

| Original Score: 2/5

Despite great acting, the general impression of the film is underwhelming.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

The drawback, however, is that the actors chew the scenery in true stagecraft fashion, which, on film, induces regular wincing and a wish that they would hand out the valium and take it easy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

| Original Score: 3/5

A 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.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Vanya on 42nd Street may be the most innovative and successful straight film adaptation of any play.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Amore traditional performance with the same actors would have gotten a higher rating.

Full Review | Original Score: low +2 out of -4..+4

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.

Full Review

I've never really seen anything like Vanya on 42nd Street.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

Even if you don't get everything there is to get, it's an incredibly unique film worth seeing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A lively and intriguing adaptation of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya."

| Original Score: 4/5

| Original Score: 4/5

It offers a unique viewing at a work in progress.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

... a record of a creative collaboration that has a life of its own, at once documentary, filmed rehearsal, play within a play, and private production restaged for a camera...

Full Review

This live-wire Vanya, freshly observed for the '90s, is fiercely funny, touching and vital.

| Original Score: 5/5

A movie by, about and for actors.

| Original Score: 4/5

| Original Score: 4/5

| Original Score: 4/4