Vanya on 42nd Street Reviews

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.

Full Review | Original Score: A

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

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

There's more power here than in all the multi-million dollar fireworks of Hollywood.

Full Review

The elegant understatement of this production turns it into a livelier experiment, a fluent, gripping version of one of Chekhov's more elusive plays.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

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

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.

Full Review

A lovely, intimate rethinking of Anton Chekhov's Russian classic Uncle Vanya.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

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

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

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