A film that had its moments, like that wonderful monologue about Catcher in the Rye, or the distress someone feels about how real experiences dissolve into future anecdotes. It also provides a nice bit of satire about the wealthy, their entitled offspring, and their delusions about their own racial tolerance.
Unfortunately, it's also one of the more affected scripts, with dialogue that ventures beyond just stagey (obviously coming from a play) and into exaggeration. There is real pathos at the bottom of this story, but it's undercut by so much of what we see not feeling real.
"Mom told me you were a rotten lover and drank so much your body smelled of cheap white wine!" a son bellows at his father over the phone. "I was so happy, I wanted to add sex to it," the con-man says in a sing-song voice to explain why he brought a lover up to the rich couple's apartment. There are many other examples of groan-worthy lines.
I have to say, the film also doesn't do a very good job with its title concept, that we're separated from everyone on the planet by six other people. It's just stated as something a character has read, without an example or further discussion. It's in there I suppose as a way of highlighting the empathy the wealthy should be feeling for the young man who has tried to wheedle into their world, as "close" as the human hive is supposed to be, but that felt more forced than satisfying to me.
I liked the performances from Will Smith and Stockard Channing, and I liked the creativity (dare I say imagination) it showed in the second half. Once we know there's a con across multiple people going on, a more conventional film would have gone through the drama of what was being stolen (like maybe a switcharoo of those expensive paintings for fakes) and how the guy would get caught (following a cat and mouse game with a savvy detective). In this one, we don't know at all what direction it will take. Overall, kind of an odd film, but worth seeing.
