The whole affair has been a confidence game, and she's the victim. She tries to con him but tips her hand, and he confronts her with her failure. Pushed, she plays the trump card, shooting and killing him. After a vacation, Margaret lunches with Dr. Littauer, whose advice she has taken and forgiven herself the unforgivable. In the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock , Mamet worked from his own storyboards, which meticulously detailed how he wanted each shot to look.
Shadows lurk behind characters or cloak their faces and their intentions.
This is not a world of half truths, but a wooden nickel world of deceit where lies are as intricately staged as a play. His screenplay also is airtight, as laden with traps for the viewer as it is for Crouse. Although the dialogue often departs from a wholly naturalistic approach, Mamet is not asking to be judged realistically, he is after deeper psychological truths, matters that are rationally insolvable. Mantegna and his cronies are like a troupe of performers mounting a command performance, but their objective isn't dramatic truth or Crouse's applause, it is her fortune. Mantegna is suave, savvy, and, in an odd way, plainspoken, as the con man who is as much a streetwise philosopher as a hustler, predatory without being malicious.