Town & Country

Nearing retirement age, Warren Beatty still gets all the gals. As Porter, an upper-crust New York City architect, he's got a wife (Diane Keaton) who's his inspiration and creative peer. He's also having a fling with a zesty cellist (Nastassja Kinski), and he shares an impromptu roll with -- somewhere Carly Simon has got to be smiling -- his best friend's wife (Goldie Hawn), but only after the friend (Garry Shandling) is exposed for infidelity first. Then there's Andie MacDowell as a deranged "architect fucker" and Jenna Elfman doing her best Marilyn Monroe in the snowy remotes of Sun Valley.

Written by Michael Laughlin and Buck Henry (The Graduate), Town & Country boasts a Woody Allen cheekiness. It also pretends to say something deep about midlife crises and staying the course, but it's more a voyeuristic look at the dysfunctional side of the rich and not-so-famous. The direction by Peter Chelsom (Funny Bones and The Mighty), which could have been limited to set pieces, is wide open and visually grand. The acting is pretty on-the-mark too, but nothing will prepare you for Charlton Heston as a gonzo, gun-toting outdoorsman and Marian Seldes as his wheelchair-confined wife, who issues an obscenity-laced rant about her husband's "flaccid cock." At the Apple Valley, Flagship, Harbour Mall, Hoyts Providence 16, Opera House, Showcase, Swansea, and Tri-Boro cinemas.
-- Tom Meek