State And Main

A surprisingly gentle, Preston Sturges-inspired satire on Hollywood from the blessed pen of David Mamet, State And Main is almost scarily good-natured coming from the man behind such far-from-gentle classics as the scalpel-sharp Speed The Plow (not to mention his collection of essays on Hollywood playwright life entitled A Whore's Profession).

Possibly, Mamet is mellowing with age, a theory supported by the tone of both State And Main and last year's Edwardian costume drama The Winslow Boy - in any event, State And Main turns out to be an utterly charming and often hilarious culture-clash comedy. Plot: a movie crew descends upon the small apple-pie town of Waterford, Vermont in order to make a period drama entitled The Old Mill. When it transpires that the local tourist brochure has been lying and that said mill has long since gone, director Walt(Macy) dispatches the screenwriter Joe White (Seymour-Hoffman) to revise the screenplay extensively.

His lucky manual typewriter goes missing, and local bookshop-owner Ann (Pidgeon) comes to his rescue, prompting a romance that's handled with much tenderness and intelligence. Elsewhere, the troubled production's leading man Bob(Baldwin)'s predilection for underage girls threatens to halt the film completely, while leading lady Claire (Parker) suddenly decides that she's no longer prepared to strip off for her art.

The bubbling repartee which invariably defines Mamet's work is present and correct throughout, and Macy in particular (as the godlike director figure) is on truly top form. Elsewhere, Seymour-Hoffman and Pidgeon make an unlikely but appealing romantic coupling - and while the entire exercise serves to underline Hollywood's utter lack of artistic integrity, State And Main is ultimately too good-natured to ever become truly scathing, instead preferring to enjoy the foibles of the place's generally less-than-upstanding population. On occasion, one longs for Mamet to bare his teeth - but State And Main is such an amiable and charming affair that one would be very hard-pressed to find any faults at all. A truly class act.