Insignificance

Director: Nicolas Roeg
Year Released: 1985
Rating: 3.0

Several big-time celebrities (for their time) - Albert Einstein (Michael Emil), Marilyn Monroe (Theresa Russell), Joe DiMaggio (Gary Busey) and "Red Scare" Senator Joseph McCarthy (an excellent Tony Curtis) - have their lives converge in this meditation on fame, regret and memory, with each of them confronting (or ignoring) their respective issues. Doesn't quite escape its stage roots - it's based on the play by Terry Johnson - but the performances are good (Russell's Monroe impersonation is both good and purposely inauthentic) and the dialogue between the central four figures is smartly written. It ends on a hauntingly ambiguous note, but that's always been Roeg's M.O.