IN THE COUNTRY OF LAST THINGS

Vanessa Redgrave is not so much an actress as a force of nature; her screen presence radiates a disturbing potency impossible to ignore. Here she reins it in to deliver an appropriately detached portrayal of a sheltered young Jewess cast on her own devices in a nightmarish world of terror and entropy. While playing against the unremitting horror of the first-person narration, she vividly impersonates the characters in dialogue scenes. If she errs, it's by relying on her overflowing treasure chest of technique instead of penetrating Auster's novel to its depths. Y.R. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: NOV/DEC 97]