Insignificance

Four people, all of them 1950s American icons, meet in a hotel room in ever varying combinations. Their names are never mentioned, yet it is clear who they are: Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Senator Joseph McCarthy, a figurehead of anti-Communist propaganda, and baseball star Joe DiMaggio, the jealous husband of Marilyn Monroe. Nicolas Roeg looks beyond the facades of their public personas to discovers complex individuals at odds with themselves who are still the sensitive children they once were. Clichés are turned on their head: while the actress explains the Theory of Relativity in everyday terms, the professor shows off his legs. This whole dangerous game doesn’t end well; all the pent-up energy is unleashed in a suitably apocalyptic conclusion. (al)