Dinner With Friends
Directed by Norman Jewison and adapted by Donald Margulies from  his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this acclaimed HBO production offers a  welcome antidote to the superficiality of mainstream Hollywood. With  the same attention to emotional detail that he brought toMoonstruck, Jewison establishes a delicate balance of anguish  and bittersweet humor, reaching peak intensity as two couples confront  the aftershocks of infidelity. Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell play  the steady pair, committed to surviving every marital peak and valley.  Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette are splitting up, divided by his  infidelity and forced to reevaluate connections to their long-term  friends. While Jewison and cinematographer Roger Deakins expertly  translate the stagy material, the revealing, nonjudgmental quality of  Margulies's dialogue inspires excellence from this quartet of  underrated actors. Funny, painful, and full of truth,Dinner with  Friendspresents marriage as an organic work in progress, never to  be taken for granted, and never guaranteed.--Jeff Shannon