OxfordPress.com

"The Guys," based on Anne Nelson's 2001 play, faces a different problem. Written as a heartfelt response to the atrocity of Sept. 11, the piece debuted in early December, less than three months after the tragedy. A simply mounted, one-act, two-character drama, "The Guys" was a sorely needed Band-Aid for a traumatized city. Taking a cue from The New York Times' prize-winning obituary project, the play concerned a devastated New York Fire Department captain who asks a writer to help him compose eulogies for his men lost when the World Trade Center collapsed.

In the movie, the captain, Nick, is played by Anthony LaPaglia, and the writer, Joan, by Sigourney Weaver, who created the role onstage. Aside from the addition of a few minor characters and scenes of Weaver doing New Yorky things like walking the Upper West Side and riding the subway, the play is pretty much intact. Nick slowly, stumblingly articulates his feelings while Joan listens, takes notes, asks prodding questions.

We get names: Dougherty, Hughes, O'Neil ("That's a hard one," Nick says. "He was my best friend"). We get stats: In a normal year, six firefighters might die in New York; 350 were killed in one day. We get memories, some all the more poignant for what's not remembered. "I can't even see his face," Nick says of one rookie.

The movie's problem is, it's a tweener. Too much time has passed. Not enough time has passed. Two years later, the anguish Nelson chronicled has become a pain remembered -- still fresh, but now experienced through the relentless filter of time. Lacking the raw immediacy in which it was conceived, the play's flaws are more visible. We see the sentimentality, the schematic seams.

The nation has moved on, to a war in Iraq and constant color-coded alerts. "The Guys" remains locked in its moment, which, I'm guessing, will enhance its power, say, five years from now.

For now, "The Guys" is best viewed as a momentary microcosm of a city in mourning, a city in shock, groping its way to a cautious recovery in the aftermath of the day when everything changed.