Until the End of the World

Robin Wright, best known as "The Princess Bride," has the lead role as Tara, an independent young woman who lives with her sister, and who, in the film's opening moments, has a baby out of wedlock.

She is the scandal of the town, of course, and even finds herself chastised over the pulpit by the local priest - not so much for having the child as for her refusal to reveal the identity of the father. Early in the film a young man (Adrian Pasdar, of "Hear My Song," in a brief cameo) kills himself, causing the locals to assume he was the father.

Meanwhile, Hegarty, the local police sergeant (Albert Finney), who is twice Tara's age and hopelessly smitten with her, tries to win her hand, but Tara isn't interested.

All of this is merely setup, of course, and the film really gets rolling - and begins to display its wry wit - when a traveling troupe of actors, known as "The Playboys," comes to town to perform variety acts and Shakespeare.

The nominal star among the performers is Tom (Aidan Quinn), who is attracted to Tara. She feels an attraction as well but sets it aside, assuming he is just another charming scoundrel passing through. And she may be right.

"The Playboys" is low-key and disarming, and its appeal sneaks up on you. Wright and Quinn are winning performers, as are the other cast members. And there are some riotous set-pieces as the troupe performs outrageous interpretations of everything from "Othello" to "Gone With the Wind."

An adult film, it is rated PG-13 for violence, profanity, vulgarity and sex.

- "KAFKA" is the long-awaited (at least in this market) second film by Steven Soderbergh, boy wonder of the Sundance Film Festival after scoring a few years ago with "sex, lies and videotape."

But "Kafka" is very different, a bizarre attempt to visualize the imaginings of writer Franz Kafka. In a way it resembles "Naked Lunch," and, even more strongly, Woody Allen's "Shadows and Fog," though "Kafka" was released nationally before those films. But it also owes a lot to such older pictures, like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," "The Third Man" and Orson Welles' adaptation of Kafka's "The Trial." Not to mention "The Wizard of Oz" and "Frankenstein."

The film feels like little more than an elaborate in-joke for film buffs, right down to the names of characters (Ian Holm plays Dr. "Murnau").

Photographed largely on location in Prague, in gorgeous black and white (except for one color sequence toward the end), "Kafka" stars Jeremy Irons in the title role,a fictionalized Kafka who is a meek clerk.