About The Book

Things Change is the second major film (the first was the very successful House of Games) to be directed from his own original script by playwright David Mamet—in this instance with best-selling writer and illustrator Shel Silverstein as coauthor. It is a heartwarming burlesque of the American Dream served with a twist of bitter irony. Gino (played by Don Ameche), a gentle old shoeshine man who dreams of owning a fishing boat back in his Sicilian birthplace, gets an offer he can’t refuse—to take the rap for a Mafia murder committed by a man he resembles. In return he’ll get more than enough money to buy his boat—when he gets out of jail. Jerry (Joe Mantegna), a down-and-almost-out member of the gang, is assigned the task of turning Gino in. But Gino’s old-world innocence captures Jerry’s heart, and with nothing to lose, he takes Gino on a last fling to Lake Tahoe’s casinos. Mamet and Silverstein give this morality tale of tangled identities for sale another surprising spin when Gino’s na’vet” is mistaken for the lordly ways of a powerful Mafia don.

Things Change keeps the audience spellbound to the end with the dizzying twists and turns of a story about friendship that is as poignant as it is profound.