`THE DESIGNATED MOURNER' MAKES SHAKY MOVE TO FILM : THE FACTS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

Two very smart, sensitive people talk about what frightens and will ultimately destroy them while a third, not-as-smart guy lets us know how deeply he hates the other two.

It's easy to see how this made for a great night of theater when ``The Designated Mourner'' wowed 'em in London last year. As a film, it probably works less well - an hour and a half of three talking faces is unavoidably hard to take, no matter how brilliantly written and delivered the talk. Still, the movie is more revealing and sadly moving than it had any right to be.

This has a lot to do with the basic stuff of the play itself. Written by Wallace Shawn, who scripted the eminently watchable conversation piece ``My Dinner With Andre,'' ``Mourner'' is a lament for true art in the twin guises of political parable and family psychodrama. It often crosses the pretentiousness line, but that's part of the material's tricky intelligence, too; who's to define pretension in a world of collapsing standards and precious snobbery?

Speaking of precious, we get a few stunt job-switches in this package. Intellectual English playwright David Hare (``Pravda,'' ``The Secret Rapture'') makes another one of his sporadic ventures into film directing, which in this case pretty much involves changing lighting as a monologuist sits and yaks away. Mike Nichols, better-known as the director of ``The Graduate,'' ``The Birdcage'' and lots of other Hollywood movies, speaks for Jack, the resentful husband of Judy (``The Crying Game's'' Miranda Richardson) and son-in-law of Howard (David de Keyser).

Howard is a respected poet and essayist who keeps running into trouble with his unnamed country's revolving fascist governments. As the latest regime threatens him and his artsy circle more than ever before, Jack, an uninspired academic who's never felt comfortable in his wife's more accomplished circle, seizes the opportunity to spew out his pent-up bile.

In rejecting Judy and Howard, he also claims to have found new freedom in abandoning their highbrow culture. What this boils down to is that he finds a lot of satisfaction in pornography, which doesn't require the brainwork and personal interaction he finds so increasingly odious.

Nichols gives a powerful, if overemphatic reading; when all you're doing is sitting and talking, too much hand and neck movement becomes incredibly distracting on a big screen. Richardson and de Keyser, in smaller, more poignant but less interesting roles, prove spot-on experts at this kind of direct-address work.

Still, you could probably get as much out of simply reading the printed play as you do out of this film. While facial and vocal intonation can add immeasurably to the meaning and mystery of a piece as well-written as ``The Designated Mourner,'' bringing in the added element of cinema requires that something actually cinematic join the mix. Just making the faces bigger is not enough to make it better.

The film: ``The Designated Mourner'' (R; language).

The stars: Mike Nichols, Miranda Richardson, David de Keyser.

Behind the scenes: Directed by David Hare. Written by Wallace Shawn. Produced by Hare and Donna Grey. Released by First Look Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 35 minutes.

Playing:Goldwyn Pavilion, West Los Angeles.

Our rating: Two stars