Plot
An affluent New York couple find their lives touched, intruded upon, and compelled by a mysterious young black man who is never quite who he says he is.
Release Year: 1993
Rating: 6.9/10 (10,703 voted)
Director:
Fred Schepisi
Stars: Will Smith, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland
Storyline Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, rich NYC art dealers, are called on one night by a young man, Paul, who professes to be a friend of their kids' from Harvard. They offer him a bed for the night; he enchants them with a home-cooked meal and magnificent conversation. The next morning, they learn that he is not all he seems to be. Their investigations are intriguing and lead them to re-evaluate their lives.
Writers: John Guare, John Guare
Cast: Stockard Channing
-
Ouisa
Will Smith
-
Paul
Donald Sutherland
-
Flan
Ian McKellen
-
Geoffrey Miller
Mary Beth Hurt
-
Kitty
Bruce Davison
-
Larkin
Richard Masur
-
Dr. Fine
Anthony Michael Hall
-
Trent Conway
Heather Graham
-
Elizabeth
Eric Thal
-
Rick
Anthony Rapp
-
Ben
Oz Perkins
-
Woody
(as Osgood Perkins)
Catherine Kellner
-
Tess
J.J. Abrams
-
Doug
(as Jeffrey Abrams)
Joe Pentangelo
-
Police Officer
Taglines:
For Paul, every person is a new door to a new world.
Release Date: 8 December 1993
Filming Locations: Bronxville, New York, USA
Box Office Details
Budget: $12,000,000
(estimated)
Gross: $6,410,676
(USA)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
The part of the husband was initially offered to Michael Douglas.
Goofs:
Crew or equipment visible:
When Flan is pretending to pray next to Ouisa, the boom mic and operator are reflected in the large window behind them.
Quotes:
[first lines]
Flan:
My God! Ouisa:
Is anything gone? Flan:
How can I look, I'm shaking! Ouisa:
I want to know if anything's gone! Flan:
Calm down. Ouisa:
We could have been killed! Oh, my God! The Kandinsky! Flan:
The Kandinsky! Ouisa:
It's gone, oh my God! Call the police! Flan:
Oh, no, there it is. Oh! The silver Victorian inkwell!
[...]
User Review
John Guare's Children
Rating: 9/10
A writer at the centre of one of the most elegant, entertaining,
thoughtful and soulful tales to come out of Hollywood in a long, long
time. John Guare's children are based , it seems, in real life people.
How lucky for Guare to have found the great Fred Schepsi as their
perfect foster father. Will Smith plays a man without identity,
choosing one for himself, with such care, with such gusto that everyone
remains enthralled, first of all us, the audience. Stockard Channing's
Ouisa discovers a new side to her own self in front of our eyes. It is
a performance of guts and beauty. Donald Sutherland's Flan is a first
for the movies, we've never met a character like him on the screen. The
scene in which he listens to Will Smith's Paul explain his thesis is a
triumph. We see Flan falling in love. It is chillingly beautiful. Then,
of course, the aforementioned Will Smith, he moves with a borrowed self
confidence, like his character and it's impossible not to love him. He
has the elegance of a Cary Grant and the charisma that we all now
associate with Will Smith. I only regret that he didn't go for the
kiss. That would have completed the shocking sum of all his parts. I
love this film. I love John Guare for writing it. I love Schepsi (he's
an old love of mine "Cry in Dark" "Plenty") The superb editing, the
wonderful tangoish score and the work of the production and costume
designers makes "Six Degrees of Separation" one of the most rewarding
movie experiences. On this terrible summer of World at Wars, New
Batmans and some other horrors, do yourself a favour. Rent the DVD and
stay for dinner at home with the Kittredges.
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