At its most compelling when Rosenthal explores why the crassest entertainment is internationally successful, even in the home of theatrical naturalism.
In sitcom savant Phil Rosenthal's world, truth is at least as strange as fiction and usually it's funnier, which works to his advantage in the very entertaining cultural exchange that is Exporting Raymond.
It has the structure and some of the pleasures of a well-made sitcom or docu-reality show, despite the nervous-looking, unhappy guy at its center; it could have been called "Nobody Understands Phil."
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Village Voice
Village Voice
Like its namesake, Exporting Raymond captures a few satisfyingly human moments.
Offers an intriguing outsider's document of Russian culture reinventing itself from the outside in; its main export, however, seems to be good old-fashioned Ugly Americanism.