Focus is a 2001 American drama film starring William H. Macy, Laura Dern, David Paymer and Meat Loaf based on a 1945 novel by playwright Arthur Miller. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was given a limited release on October 19, 2001. Plot In the waning months of World War II, Lawrence Newman is a mild-mannered, gentile man who works as a personnel manager and lives with his mother in Brooklyn. His next-door neighbor, Fred, is friendly to him but is also a member of an antisemitic group called the Union Crusaders, who blame Jews for the war. Neighborhood tensions have also intensified with the arrival of a Jewish storekeeper named Finkelstein. One day, a gentile woman named Gertrude Hart shows up at Lawrence’s workplace to apply for a job, but Lawrence brushes her off on his suspicion that she’s Jewish and his fear of being fired. Lawrence buys a new pair of eyeglasses that people around him say makes him "look Jewish" when he wears them. As he continues to wear the eyeglasses, he himself becomes the target of antisemitic sentiment. His boss demotes him with no explanation, and Lawrence resigns in protest. He has no luck in finding a new job until he runs into Gertrude, who has found secretarial work in a Jewish-owned business. After he apologizes to her for his behavior, she helps him find work at the company. The two befriend each other and eventually marry. As a couple, Gertrude and Lawrence become subject to multiple social humiliations, including a rejection from a resort where they had made reservations for a weekend trip. The attitude of their neighbors towards them also becomes frostier. Gertrude, who knows more than her husband about the Union Crusaders, urges him to attend a rally for his own protection. Soon, Lawrence finds himself in a situation where he must contend with the neighborhood’s prejudice, as well as his own. Cast Production Photographer Neal Slavin had wanted to direct an adaptation of Arthur Miller's novel Focus since he was a student at art school in the 1960s. In the 1990s, Slavin struck a deal with Miller that if a good screenplay could be written, the playwright would grant him permission to adapt the novel. Slavin commissioned playwright Kendrew Lascelles to write the script, and after some revisions and suggestions by Miller, the adaptation was approved. One of