Focus

This movie packs a punch. There are a few every now and then that make me think deeply, and disturb me a lot. I could see myself in this same predicament - passively allowing things to happen around me, not standing up for the right and decent thing, just trying to avoid trouble. How often do we avoid making waves or sticking our necks out? How often does our inaction condone the evil actions of others. We would never join them, we tell ourselves, we recognize that what they are doing is bad, but do we do anything about it?

Lawrence Newman (William H. Macey) is a low-key, nerdy office worker who has paid off his home in Brooklyn, NY in the waning days of World War II. He rarely gets engaged in what is going on around him, has never married, rarely socializes, just goes to work and cares for his invalid mother. Then a series of events in his very "white" little neighborhood pull him out of his complacent shell into a maelstrom of events. It starts as he witness from his bedroom window the rape of a Puerto Rican girl by the son of his neighbor. Soon after he gets glasses because of poor vision. As he is now better able to see, he becomes less able to deal with the circumstances of his life. The one bright spot is a new love in his life, and he marries, hoping to continue on in his normalcy. Then the virulent anti-semitism on that street catches him, despite his credentials as a Presbyterian WASP. As things spiral further out of control, he discovers he must make an important decision - does he take a stand or does he simply go away.

I cannot how anybody can view this movie without being affected and having to think very much about themselves and what they really stand for. Post war anti-semitism is the setting here, but there is injustice at all times and in all places. It is for the individual to decide where he or she stands.

First I must admit that I have not read the story on which this movie is based. Secondly I have to confess that I am always highly suspicious of movies which depict actions that are supposed to have happened more than fifteen years before production and try to create an authentic setting.

That much said, I would like to explain why this film disappointed me so deeply. I presume the aim of the story consists in denouncing the outrageous absurdity of racism and prejudice and not in setting up the period piece this movies tries to be. In the center of this story should be a pair of glasses generating prejudice (hence the title focus)! Instead we have performances of brilliant acting talents such as Macy (at one time absurdly, "artfully" distorted like a comic book character), Paymer, Dern and Meat Loaf, clean sets with theme park quality, flawless fotography, brilliant colours. Everybody is striving to give his or her best – and it all confounds the issue. Ambition and ultimately vanity prevailed and killed the story to a large extent. In my opinion the whole approach to the story was a wrong one.

For many, perhaps Arthur Miller is most famous for his 4 1/2 years married to Marilyn Monroe. For me, it is his Death of a Salesman for which I did a lengthy report as a college assignment in the mid-60s. I had never heard of Focus, and it is a movie that few have seen. An interesting premise, well-executed. His WASP-ish everyman character in 1943 (during the war) comes under attack after he gets a pair of new eyeglasses, which apparently makes him "look Jewish." His Americanism is questioned, his garbage is overturned, is forced to quit his job, he gets thrown out of a union rally when he fails to stand up and clap, he and his wife get roughed up by thugs on the street at night. The film is an examination of our tolerance for prejudicial treatment of others, then our own reaction towards such treatment.

The critic Ebert has a fine and complete review. William Macy, David Paymer, Laura Dern, and Meat Loaf Aday are all fine in their roles. A worthwhile 106 minutes of thought-provoking entertainment. The DVD, which was a free loan from my local library, has a sharp picture and good use of DD 5.1 sound. There is a very interesting extra which includes Arthur Miller discussing his book and the movie.

Others' main criticism of this film--namely that Macy suddenly looks Jewish upon donning his glasses--is misplaced. The glasses are just the little bit of change needed to CONVINCE others he's a Jew. The scene in which he says to his boss, (paraphrasing) "but you KNOW what my background is," along with another discussion with his mother, suggests that he's had to fight this same assumption in the past. The glasses now make him look just Jewish enough to "confirm" his neighbors' and co-workers' existing suspicions. Then there is his new wife's large nose and taste for loud clothes, which OF COURSE means she's Jewish. The whole point of the film is how those little stereotypical nothings become the entire basis for judging others.

If he has a lisp, he must be gay. If he has long hair, he smokes dope. If he's Hispanic, he's got a knife...and if he has round black glasses and he's slight of build, he must be Jewish. Those statements all sound equally (im)plausible to me. If the conclusion people were jumping to in Focus was reasonable, the whole point of the story would be lost.

Most people attending this film will have no idea of the great novel by Arthur Miller that is the basis of it. It's a novel that should be read by more people to see how prejudice affects and alters peoples lives.

At the beginning, Lawrence Newman is an ordinary man. The eyeglasses his boss makes him get change everything he has worked for and his whole world collapses around him, little by little. There couldn't have been an actor better suited to bring this intelligent performance to the screen than William H. Macy. Not only is he a talented stage and screen actor, but he projects honesty behind every character he plays. He is an everyday man caught in his own insecurities. His anxiety intensifies when he takes a stand and walks out of his job. Suddenly, he has to confront the issues he has tried to avoid all his middle class existence in the Brooklyn of the 40s. Is he Jewish, is he not? The cinematography in this brilliant and atmospheric film, directed with sure hand by Neil Slavin, kept reminding me of some Edward Hopper's paintings, especially a sequence at the beginning of the film when Newman steps outside a building and the night shot when he and his wife are being followed with long black shadows behind the couple, menacing and anticipating the confrontation with the bullies. Laura Dern, David Paymer, and especially Meat Loaf, who infuses incredible depth to the bully-next-door, are excellent, but they all pale in comparison with the stellar turn of William H. Macy (H must stand for HONEST..) If you haven't read the book, I would sincerely recommend it because no one has written more truly and convincingly than Arthur Miller has.