The enormously gifted actor Tom Conti (Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence) received rave reviews and a Best Actor Academy Award® nomination for his brilliant performance in this biting satire on snobbish intellectual life in the suburbs. Conti portrays the delightfully brash, sinfully outrageous poet Gowan McGland, a once-talented artist whose talent has clearly faded. McGland hasn't written a word in five years, instead he gets by on bedding other men's wives, flamboyant lectures on the New England college circuit, and stealing tips from waiters at expensive restaurants. It's not much of a life, but that's all he has, until he meets the dazzling Geneva Spofford, played flawlessly by Kelly McGillis (Witness) in her acting debut. Director Robert Ellis Miller (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter) directed the Academy Award® nominated screenplay by Julius J. Epstein (Cross of Iron).