Reuben, Reuben

With his crumpled tweed suit and his apparently irresistible Highland brogue, writer Gowan McGland is soon worming his way into the pants of neighbourhood New England wives while mourning the expiry of his muse. Since the stuff he wrote when he was on top form sounds like Patience Strong in especially lyrical vein, this might not be too much of a blow. Nevertheless, McGland/Conti is a worried man, and well he might be as he has to try to straddle a plot cannibalised out of a Peter DeVries novel and an unrelated Broadway play, which threatens constantly to come apart at the seams. Director Miller seems quite unable to decide whether he's making a portrait of maudlin self-absorption or an eccentric-on-the-loose comedy, and has a habit of turning glutinous whenever the cracks start to appear. Conti is impressively dissolute, and turns on the charm with great gusto, but against odds like these all he can do is go down fighting.