Not since Superman donned them and became Clark Kent have a pair of glasses had such an effect on someone’s appearance as they do in first-time director Neal Slavin’s Focus, an adaptation of a deservedly obscure Arthur Miller novel. In a 1945 Brooklyn that’s more like Munich in 1933, Lawrence Newman (William H. Macy), a placid personnel manager, is ordered by his boss to buy a pair of glasses when he fails to recognize that a woman he’s hired is Jewish. The irony is that when he puts the glasses on, people think he looks Jewish himself (actually, he looks a little like Harry Truman).

He loses his job and attracts the attention of the local anti-Semitic " Union Crusaders, " who are headed by Lawrence’s next-door neighbor Fred (Meat Loaf Aday). Apparently these creeps don’t have enough fun picking on Finkelstein (David Paymer), the corner grocer. Or maybe they suspect that Lawrence witnessed one of their number raping a Puerto Rican woman. Spineless Lawrence, though, won’t turn the culprit in — indeed, prodded by his new wife (Laura Dern), he tries to join up with the fascists. But you can’t argue with how those damn glasses make you look . . . or with what they make you look at!

Alas, the title concept applies only to the film’s sophomoric metaphors and not to such niceties as consistent character development and narrative clarity. Slavin shoots this all in Sunday Funnies colors, heightening the caricature quality and the simplistic preaching. True, in these troubled times we need reminders about tolerance, but this film is an eyesore.