There's a gentle, sweet-natured core to Robin Williams's screen personality that is too often camouflaged by the hysteria that forms the basis of his performances. This rather melancholic comedy lets that attractive side surface to good effect, with Williams playing a Soviet circus musician who defects while shopping in New York. (Other customers think it's a staged event.) He then finds, once he's part of the immigrant experience, that life is as racist and rancid as back home, with freedom as a meagre bonus. Director Paul Mazursky gallops off in too many directions at once, but Williams's performance is the real treat - he plays it, like his saxophone, relatively straight.

A Russian circus visits the US. A clown wants to defect, but doesn't have the nerve. His saxophone playing friend however comes to the decision to defect in the middle of Bloomingdales. He is befriended by the black security guard and falls in love with the Italian immigrant from behind the perfume counter. We follow his life as he works his way through the American dream and tries to find work as a musician.