New York has enjoyed a featured role in most of Paul (An Unmarried Woman) Mazursky's movies. Never has it played the contradictory and complex part it does in this melancholy comedy. A troupe of Soviet circus performers visiting Manhattan on a cultural exchange encounters a forbidden wonderland of surrealistic sights: break dancers on the streets, billboards promoting designer underwear, and hotel shower caps that the Russians refer to as giant prophylactics. During a frenetic excursion to Bloomingdale's, the circus' saxophonist, Robin Williams, decides to defect. What follows is Mazursky's meditation on instant assimilation and Manhattan as a land of golden but realistic opportunity. "You don't have to thank me—you have to pay me," says Williams' Cuban lawyer. As usual Mazursky is a sly social commentator with a puckish point of view: Befriended by a black security guard at Bloomingdale's, Williams makes his first American home in the Harlem flat of his pal's family. Despite the freshness of Mazursky's vision, the film's second half indulges in a patronizing gollygee patriotism. When customers in a coffee shop erupt into a recitation of the Declaration of Independence, the film turns into a mushy pledge of allegiance. Whenever Mazursky falters, though, Williams' performance steadies the film. Williams is a master at misfits, and this is both his most controlled and most creative movie performance. Stripped of his old Morkish shtick, Williams still finds the humor as well as the pathos in his character's plight; he proves himself a substantial dramatic actor. Watching one of America's top comics convincingly transform himself into a troubled Russian immigrant is this movie's most delightful and satisfying culture shock. (R)
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