Six degrees of separation [DVD]

John Guare adapted his hit Broadway play for the screen version of “Six degrees of separation”. Having won accolades on Broadway, Stockard Channing reprises her role of Ouisa Kittredge in the film, directed by Fred Schepisi. Ouisa and her husband Flan (Donald Sutherland) are New York art dealers, trading at the high end of the market to Upper West Side clientele. One night they allow a young man into their home who has been wounded in a street attack and who is coincidentally a friend of their Harvard enrolled children. Paul (Will Smith), the son of Sidney Poitier, charms and beguiles the Kittredges regaling them with tales of his life. But Paul is not what he claims to be, sending the Kittredges on a journey of discovery as to who Paul is and what role he plays in their lives. Their story is retold in a series of flashbacks - dinner party vignettes that reflects the Kittredges’ social status and professional/personal ambitions. “Six degrees of separation” questions notions of belonging and of family, of trust and prejudice and is a sharp observation of identity and social mores in upper class Manhattan. Also stars Heather Graham, Ian McKellen, Mary Beth Hurt, Anthony Michael Hall and Bruce Davison.