Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

Directed by Fred Schepisi. Starring Donald Sutherland, Stockard Channing, Will Smith, Bruce Davison, Mary Beth Hurt, Ian McKellen, Richard Masur, Heather Graham, Anthony Michael Hall, Eric Thal, Daniel von Bargen, Catherine Kellner. [R]

The sheltered, pseudo-liberal lives of Sutherland and Channing’s wealthy New York socialites are disrupted by the abrupt arrival of a young injured black man (Smith) at their penthouse door, who claims not only to be a college friend of their kids, but also the son of actor/director Sidney Poitier. He is, of course, not those things—and had Google existed in the early-90s, they would have known in about four seconds that Poitier has no sons, only daughters—but what brought this ingratiating con artist to their door, and how the gullible couple and their snobbish Upper East Side friends react to the situation, is what fuels this initially-absorbing but uneven satirical drama based on the same-named play from John Guare. From privilege and piety to vanity and unguarded racism, the targets are worthy, but the satire has a tendency to be as obvious as it is incisive (and in the case of these WASP’s acrimonious children, loud). Works best in the first half when the audience doesn’t quite understand what fuels the impostor and they get to revel in the privileged class’ near-apoplectic outrage at being fooled and exploited, but a turn toward self-analysis and tragedy in the third act is unconvincing, ultimately muddying and poorly punctuating the criticism. Although consistently well acted by Channing, her character’s “eye-opening” arc is too sudden and unsupported to work as it should. Guare adapted his own work into the screenplay. One of the spoiled youngsters is played by J. J. Abrams (credited as “Jeffrey”).

60/100