Trouble on the Corner

So you think your shrink is unresponsive? Jeff Stewart (Tony Goldwyn) spends his day listening to pedophiles, sexual compulsives, and the grief-stricken and all he can manage to offer is puppy-dog sympathy and a cup of tea. Okay, so he charges only 35 bucks a session. But the motley assortment of patients and neighbors who stream through his crumbling Manhattan apartment/office still aren't satisfied. A sterling cast of veterans (Tammy Grimes, Roger Rees, Charles Busch) play the eccentric bunch, and director Alan Madison, in his debut film, overindulges their hammy tics.

When a chunk of plaster breaks off and a hole opens in the bathroom ceiling, Doctor Jeff and wife Vivian, a nurse (Edie Falco), find their ordered life slowly unraveling. The shrink begins peeping at his sultry upstairs neighbor (Debi Mazar), a hand model who never takes off her gloves, not even in bed. Vivian -- who insists on a glass of milk, a plate of Fig Newtons, and a bath every day after work -- seems even chillier than usual. Day after day there's no escape from the nutty drone of those patients, whose most warped traits the doctor begins trying on for size.

Madison, who wrote the script, aims to cross Franz Kafka with Jules Feiffer, whose 1971 Little Murders also depicts whacked-out New Yorkers comically losing their minds. But Trouble on the Corner hits the right black tone only in its funny-creepy ending. Until then, it's uncomfortably like life in an overcrowded apartment building. The weirdness wears thin, and you just want to get away for the weekend.

-- Scott Heller