Six Degrees of Separation (1993) R - 4 Stars

This one gets my recommendation as one of those movies that messes with your mind. Starring Will Smith and Donald Sutherland, Smith is great playing a well educated, con man. The "six-degrees-of-separation paradigm" says that if you find the right string of friends, relatives, colleagues and lovers, you can move in six steps to connect them. Everyone in the world is touched somehow by this 6th person's connection therefore everyone out there somewhere/anywhere is connected to you in 6 steps.

Flan (Donald Sutherland) and Ouisa Kittredge (Stockard Channing) are married, living in Manhattan and art dealers to the higher ups. They are throwing a party one night to sell some art when Paul (Will Smith) knocks on the door. He tells them he is a friend of their children whom he went to school with. Seems he's been mugged and he just needs a place for the night till he can get himself together in the morning.

Paul is extremely proper and elegant in appearance and he offers to help fix dinner for them for payment. He claims to be the son of Sidney Poitier and tells them about his life in the upper class white area of New York. They Kittredge's are mesmerized with this young man who cooks like a chef and tells them magnificent stories. He helps close an art deal that night. Everything is grand until they find Paul in bed with another man in their home and immediately ask him to leave. Once gone, they realize how much he has touched them.

When the couple gets together with some of their friends, they find out that Paul has been conning all of them with his fascinating stories. Paul has touched them all in a way they'll re-evaluate their lives.

MGM Distribution
Director: Fred Schepisi
Writer: John Guare
Producers: Arnon Milchan, Fred Schepisi