Critical Reception
Insignificance received mostly positive reviews at the time of its release, and currently has a 73% score at Rotten Tomatoes The film has been written about extensively in the years since it was first seen. Film4's movie critic wrote: "Roeg really is the perfect director to bring Johnson's stage play to the screen. Throughout, tortured childhood flashbacks and pessimistic flash-forwards (ka-boom!) draw unexpected connections between time, place and circumstance, with the repeated visual motif of a wristwatch employed to mark time's passing - but perhaps also to suggest all time is one time; each moment co-existing. As evinced by his back catalogue, it's something of a hobbyhorse for a director enchanted with the notion of synchronicity - see Don't Look Now in particular. Here, 1920 bleeds into 1945 and drip-feeds into the 1980s, a period in which another 'Actor' has taken on his greatest role as the President of the United States."
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat write: "Insignificance shines with some incandescent moments of acting bravado delivered by Theresa Russell, Tony Curtis, and Gary Busey. As a weird meditation on sex, power, knowledge, and fame, this is a four-star treat for those who savor exotic movie fare...Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth) draws out the inner psychological nuances of the drama and delivers the philosophical freight in Terry Johnson's screenplay."
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