Based on Wallace Shawn’s unconventional, intense stage play (really dialogues and conversation between three actors), the DVD version is not recommended until you have read the original play. Reason: It is a play mainly of ideas about the conflict between the haves and have-nots set in a dystopian future. The movie makes much more sense as a performance of the play, so see or read the play first to get the most out of both.
The movie version stars popular director Mike Nichols in a rare acting role of Jack, a charming Andre-style (as in My Dinner with Andre) cynic who has adopted high-culture trappings, only to cast them aside later. His high-society wife is effectively played by Miranda Richardson in a nuanced, powerful manner. The third character is the wife’s father, played by David de Keyser, only appearing in the first of the two acts. He is a memorable crusty columnist whom the rebels call to account for his snooty newspaper columns.
Directing the movie is veteran David Hare who also directed Nichols and Richardson in the original London stage premiere. I should add that author Shawn himself has played Jack in recent U.S. revival productions of the play and it is not hard to imagine that the Jack character evolved from Shawn’s frequently manic, ebullient, oddball persona.
In fact, this play has grown much more relevant during the Trump era. (Given that the latter is a low-brow ignoramus who played the anti-elite card card to get elected back in 2016–a fact that echoes the background rebellion behind the surface of this play in which the have-nots call the “lucky” ones to account and to a harshly violent reckoning.)
In short, this is the most relevant socio-political play of our time and reflects the declines of cultured elites and ruling classes in 1984ish times. Shawn, himself, looks like a prophetic genius in his ’90s forecasting this major changing of the social and political guard. His writing is weirdly powerful and pointed, culminating with a shock ending expressing the ultimate crazy wish-fulfillment of a hoi-polloi anti-establishment rube. Both play and movie are highly recommended.