NOISE World Cinema: American Showcase

Henry Bean won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2002 with THE BELIEVER, a stunning portrait of a young Jewish man who became a determined neo-Nazi. Bean’s Follow-up Feature deals with another articulate intellectual New Yorker with a Fanatical gripe. This time, the campaign is against car alarms, and the tone is tragic-comic instead of anguished.

David (Tim Robbins) is a successful lawyer who can’t stand the Fact that Manhattan is a place where it’s too noisy to get a good night’s sleep, listen to his wife play classical music or even make love. Every time he hears a car alarm go off, he swings into action. His acts of vandalism generate no end of grief for his wife (Bridget Moynahan), and make him politic ally controversial when he engages the ire of the city’s arrogant mayor (a sublime William Hurt). NOISE is a complete rarity in American movies today: A comedy of ideas.