Starring Mike Nichols, Miranda Richardson and David de Keyser Directed by David Hare Rated R, with profanity and sexual references Running time 95 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 4 out of 10

(Oct. 10, 1997) -- One of the funniest gags in last year's wonderful comedy, Waiting for Guffman, involves a collection of My Dinner with Andre action figures. The joke, of course, is that Andre was the ultimate in inactive movies. It's two guys talking over dinner.

Now there is a new champion: The Designated Mourner. It makes Andre look like Die Hard. At least in Andre the two actors walk in and out of the restaurant, and maybe pass the salt.

Fittingly, The Designated Mourner was written by Wallace Shawn, a co-creator of My Dinner with Andre. David Hare directs. The Designated Mourner weaves together monologues by three characters, sitting at unadorned tables. Viewers hungry for action must content themselves with a raised eyebrow or a bouncing Adam's apple. The three are citizens of an unnamed country in the near future.

Veteran director Mike Nichols makes a rare acting appearance as Jack, a middle-aged man who is ready to admit he is no highbrow. Miranda Richardson co-stars as his intelligent wife who feels compelled to keep alive the literary interests and elite esthetics of her father, Howard, a cynical old author played by David de Keyser.

All three actors are recreating roles they originated on the London stage, also under Hare's direction.

Shawn and Hare would probably argue that the film's lack of action is precisely the point of the film. It's an elegy for the death of intellectualism and the triumph of pop culture. It's about a society dominated by attention-deficit lowbrows who would rather watch the crash of cars than hear the clash of ideas.

In the film, the few intellectuals who have tried to maintain standards are eliminated by a totalitarian government. By the end, the surviving character says: "It suddenly hit me that everyone on earth who could read John Donne was now dead."

I might add that people who don't read Donne now -- or don't know who he is -- will probably want to avoid The Designated Mourner. If ever there was a film for a limited clientele, this is it.

Shawn's script is downright belligerent in refusing to provide easy answers or even a respectable amount of clarity. If your concentration wavers, you'll find yourself examining Mike Nichols' toupee or checking whether Miranda Richardson's bangs match from scene to scene.

If you make enough effort -- and maybe drink some coffee -- The Designated Mourner finally provides some punch with Nichols' powerful concluding monologue that nearly justifies all the static, convoluted conversation that precedes it.

Still, I couldn't help thinking that if there has been a dumbing down of ideas and esthetics in the modern age, the pretentious obstinate attitude of The Designated Mourner does nothing to reverse it.