Review

Director Schrader, son of a Calvinist minister, again tackles his recurring theme of the conflict between man’s higher nature and his base proclivities. Kinnear, in a brilliant performance, essentially morphs into Bob Crane, the church-going family man who, as his career breaks open when he lands the lead role in TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes,” finds himself able to realize the fantasies previously relegated to his secret stashes of girlie magazines. Dafoe is perfect as John Carpenter (not the director), Crane’s bisexual buddy/hanger-on who provides him with the latest photography equipment and introduces him to the swinging scene. Crane is presented as struggling with his demons, calling himself a one-woman man even as his experimentation reaches astounding proportions. A sex addict before the phrase was coined, with no convenient psycho-babble to talk away the guilt, Crane wanders through the years satisfying his carnal desires and watching his career reverse itself from hit TV series to movie bomb to dinner theater; and, in his personal life, goes through two marriages and more casual encounters than he can track. Schrader cannily captures the look and feel of the “Donna Reed” times, sometimes using a hand-held camera which heightens the almost documentary-like feel the film occasionally achieves. Sometimes wry and funny, Auto Focus ultimately conveys profound sadness and regret, an aching tale of a life lost to compelling obsession; a cautionary tale of a man everybody loved, who found it impossible to avoid the occasions of sin.

 -- Ann Yarabinee