Am I Missing Something?

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I have been wanting to see Six Degrees of Separation for quite while and finally found a copy on DVD. Well, this was a tough one for me, but I liked it. The direction is superb, the acting is superb so I must give it top notch marks in those categories. Will Smith really was fantastic in his early role. The problem I found with this film was that it was a stage play adopted for film. For me, stage plays are stage plays for a reason and films are films for a reason. I found the dialogue way over the top. People simply don't speak like that - not even rich people. For some reason writers always think rich people speak super correctly and discuss philosophy. The truth is, because of my job I meet a lot of rich people and they don't act or speak like that at all. The scene where they where at the wedding telling the story was also over the top. They start telling the story to three or four people and by the end more than a dozen have gathered to listen to these people. It simply wouldn't happen. For some reason this really strikes me as a Woody Allen type of film with the same type of characters, dialogue and New York setting. But, I must say,, it is still superb.

...it reeks of self indulgent and rather amateurish ensemble acting. The young people in this film never seem, for one moment like they have any idea of what they are doing. The adults are never believable. Please don't tell me that this is exactly the point and how their roles were meant to be played. Only the worst director in the world could have looked at their group scenes and said, "now that really sizzled." I am positive that every actor in this film (some of whom are truly gifted performers) other than Stockard Channing, (who---let's face it---has been a lot better than this)--probably cringe when they watch themselves in this. This is the only timeI have ever seen Donald Sutherland in, where he is grating and annoying. Bruce Davidson is much better than this and seems to be phoning it in. And Will Smith is NOT a revelation in this film, no matter how much people wanted him to be. He is more of a charming speech giver than someone truly invested in hischaracter. The flash back and story telling style seems like something out of Love American Style. This is a wannabe attempt at high brow film making and it does not get there. Prepare to be very bored and lectured to by a story that wants to dazzle you with style over substance.

At one point, in one of the most memorable moments of "Six Degrees of Separation" the rich lady played by Stockard Channing says this: "I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it A) extremely comforting that we're so close, and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people."In a sudden event that changed her life to the point of realize that we are separated by six other people, before all of this happen 'Ouisa Kittredge and her husband Flan (Donald Sutherland) lived a perfect and wealthy life in all the New York luxe as Art dealers until a injured black man appear on their door claiming to be stabbed while walking near by their house. How did he got there and why did he got there? Because he studies at Harvard along with the Kittredge sons. Paul, this young man (played by Will Smith) is taken by the couple who gets impressed by his eloquence, his mannerisms and knowledge of arts, Kandinsky double paintings and because he happens to be....Sidney Poitier's son! But the world keeps on turning at its usual in Kittredge's house just when they realize that this guy is not what he says he is, after being discovered sleeping with another man in their house. But, after some strange illusion of coincidences the Kittredges along with friends who met this strange man they get desperate to find out who is this guy who seduces everybody and then disappears, taking something with him but at the same time injecting a marvelous and different experience in the lives of all of those rich families.John Guare's play is adapted to the screen with elegance, a funny charm, never ironic or satirical, and a brilliant drama that knows how to be more than just a statement over the empty lives of wealthy persons that becomes interesting when a stranger man appears; it is a look into everyone's lives and the events and things that can changes us in a positive way even though we don't know that it was a good experience in the moment but later there's that click in the head and you say "I get it!". It makes you understand the world around you and change things, experience different things, look in a different perspective. It has the same quality of Pasolini's "Teorema" but it is less dramatical, more positive and funnier!The quality of the performances presented here are at its best: Stockard Channing is amazing reprising his role in the play as the rich woman who entertain her friends with the stories involving Paul; Donald Sutherland is always excellent and competent in all of his roles and this is a great role for him. He really should play more millionaires in films because he has a powerful presence on the screen, charming the viewers even while playing bad guys (which is not the case here). Completing the principal casting we have the young Will Smith dominating in an important role, and one of his best performances of all time. The supporting cast includes Bruce Davison, Mary Beth Hurt, Ian McKellen, Richard Masur, Eric Thal, Heather Graham, J.J. Abrams (way before he creates a series called "6 Degrees" and "LOST") John Cunningham and Kelly Bishop (stars of the original play making a cameo in the film). Fred Schepisi direction is fantastic, and the musical themes composed by Jerry Goldsmith suits the film very well."Six Degrees of Separation" is another case of an excellent but almost forgotten film that many people will never heard of, or never watched. And the strangest thing about this fact is that when of this release it was well received by critics, almost a consensus in brilliant and positive reviews but it didn't live up to be a more recognized film even with nominations for the Oscar and Golden Globe (Best Actress). My theory: lack of home media distribution, lack of exhibition on TV and perhaps some viewers were really shocked with the plot. This film didn't connected with a larger audience, which is sad, but at least it connected the right viewers to see that this is a masterpiece, still relevant to this date. 10/10

The fact that the actual title comes from, as Channing's Ouisa informs us at some point, everybody being six persons - friends, acquaintances, lovers - away from celebrity, that is someone famous, is like an intended, over-prepared, pointless irony: it rather reads like six degrees of preparation, or six degrees away from greatness.The film has no consistent pace, is merely a play transfered - and not worked through - to celluloid, and a mediocre, portentous one, for that matter.Where it should have been an ensemble effort, it gets muddled mid-way by a flash back on how Smith's Paul was "discovered": a slight variation on the Pygmalion myth/paradigm, but weighed down by Smith's sudden moodiness, too much and too suddenly of a "man", especially for a gay, polished character. This lacks subtlety, and subtlety along with gusto is what the film was most in need. If this was intended in tune with other quasi-farcical moments, it was a ghastly error.An improbable phone-call between Ouisa and Paul muddles whatever premise and goes on forever. That much for dramatic economy.Yet Channing and Sutherland shine through, and Channing gives a tour-de-force in a nutshell during her final, small monologue, which may well be the film's moment. Afterwards smacking with a stupid closure (slapping a tree's leaves the way she did the moment of creation between God and Adam at the Sistine Chapel) of a ho-hum symbolic-and-so-manhattanite-released conclusion.This sounds worse than it is, and maybe it is, going from extreme, supposed subtlety, some good, very good lines, to cardboard situations and skimmed if not skipped direction. Watch it for its good moments and since the word imagination garlands the film with some of its best lines, imagine the film it could have been.