the changes which Slavin made was his decision to root the film "on the outer edges of surrealism and film noir." For the part of Lawrence, Slavin specifically sought out William H. Macy, basing his choice on the belief that the story is a fable about how "people’s perceptions and...intolerance blinds [one] to seeing the [actual] person." Macy hesitated to play the role, saying that he "had a nagging fear that having an uber-Lutheran play a victim of antisemitism might offend someone, thinking we were trivializing the subject." Macy decided to play the role after he consulted his mentor and collaborator David Mamet. The movie was filmed in Toronto, where its producers built a simulacrum of 1940s Brooklyn. Said Slavin, "One of my goals was to build a 'Mary Poppins'-like world, stylizing the setting so that everything looked perfect, so that you felt rather than saw the dark underbelly. You're taken in by the prettiness, but you don't trust it." Editor Tariq Anwar, who had worked on the film American Beauty, was chosen by Slavin to achieve this vision. The film was personally financed by Michael Bloomberg, a friend of Slavin's who was a candidate for mayor of New York City at the time. Slavin said, "Michael read it in one day, called me and said, 'Let's do it.' This movie happened because of him. And it wasn't like he just put the money down and walked away. He was involved in the inspiration every step of the way." Reception Critical response On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 56% based on 81 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "Though full of good intentions, Focus somehow feels dated, and pounds away its points with a heavy hand." On Metacritic the film has a score of 53% based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Stephen Holden of The New York Times said the film "conveys the eerie claustrophobia and choked-back panic of an especially grim and creepy episode of The Twilight Zone. Its view of 1940's America is pointedly opposite from today's prevailing gung-ho nostalgia about World War II. It pointedly reminds us that prejudice and xenophobia are the flip sides of unity and togetherness." Though Holden noted the film's themes are "as subtle as a brickbat" and were handled with more "subtlety and passion" in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, he said Focus "builds up