FILM CHOICE; Getting a break.

SINCE the beginning, there have been rich people and poor people.

Except in Beverly Hills, where residents are shielded from the underclass and are allowed to shoot the underdressed.

It's the perfect setting for a mid-'80s morality play, when Americans were getting richer and whiter and fatter but never happier.

Down and Out in Beverly Hills is a fairly smart satire not just on the fools with swimming pools, but also on their ridiculous daydream that life among the lowly would be any more fulfilling.

Richard Dreyfus, who will always play the whiny guy with unmatched comic skill, is a million- dollar man who invites a suicidal hobo (Nick Nolte) into his divided home.

He feels that he can give him that classic '80s opportunity to plug himself into the system, and maybe help Dreyfus himself rediscover the simple pleasures in life. See, Dreyfus has money and a mansion and a Mexican mistress, but his son is an alien MTV freak and his neurotic wife (Bette Midler who is, and ever shall be, Bette Midler) would rather sleep with prince valium.

So Nolte, who's been living out of bins with his charismatic dog, gets a room and a bath, and proceeds to take advantage, helping himself to the fridge and the wardrobe and every woman in Dreyfus' life, including his prissy daughter.

Recasting himself as a wandering spirit with the meaning of life in his knapsack, Nolte dizzies the rich with home spun homeless philosophy and proves himself as much of an opportunist as a corporate raider.

In the end, it's far too neat and tidy to be seen as serious social comment, but only the hyper- '80s styles seem dated.

Dreyfus and Nolte show exactly where their characters are coming from - men that you don't have to like but you do have to sympathise with. And the music and meaning of the Talking Heads song Once In A Lifetime run through it like water. (1986) PPP