Jonathan Demme directed this romantic seriocomic tale based on a short story by novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. that reveals the power inherent in role-playing. When a small-town theater puts on a production of Tennessee Williams’s A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, two of the town's most shy individuals find an outlet for their usually repressed emotions. Christopher Walken plays Harry Nash, a shy hardware store owner who is cast as the notoriously impassioned Stanley Kowalski. Susan Sarandon plays Helene Shaw, a lonely nomadic telephone employee who is new in town. When Helene is cast as Stella, she begins to fall for Harry’s version of the super-brutish Stanley without ever having met him out of character. Offstage, Harry is still terminally shy. Once Helene discovers the truth about Harry, she refuses to let go of the idea of comingling with the man she knows is lurking in him somewhere. The film is well peppered with a number of extremely likable and believable characters, making for a small, delightful picture.

release year: 1981

star(s): Christopher Walken    Susan Sarandon