Somehow, critics have managed to pigeonhole David Mamet, as though all the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's works were exactly the same.

Once they've heard the punchy, expletive-heavy lines of Glengarry Glen Ross and seen a similar style resurface in plays like American Buffalo and Speed-The-Plow, they quickly label him for his staccato, obscenity-strewn dialogue. They bandy around Mamet's name as though everybody knew who he was, when in fact, the majority of the movie-going public couldn't tell David Mamet from Auntie Mame.

Nevertheless, just about everyone has encountered one of Mamet's projects, from The Untouchables and The Verdict (for which he wrote the screenplays) to House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner, in which he directed his own scripts.

Turn to just about any review of The Winslow Boy, Mamet's newest film, and I guarantee that you'll find the critic citing his surprise that Mamet could make a G-rated film. However, on close inspection, the seemingly innocuous story fits in nicely with the parables Mamet is fond of telling.

Adapted from a Terence Rattigan play, The Winslow Boy retells the true story of a scandalous turn-of-the-century trial in which a London banker challenged the infallibility of the crown to protect his family's good name. After learning that his son had been expelled from the Naval Academy when a tribunal found him guilty of stealing and cashing a schoolmate's postal order, Arthur Winslow confronts young Ronnie in his study and straightforwardly demands to know whether he is responsible for the crime.

Matters of trust resurface throughout Mamet's work. No matter how many characters are involved in a Mamet film, situations always arise in which pairs of characters must face their uncertainty and depend on one another. The Edge, which presents this theme in adventure-movie format, might be the clearest example, though the situation occurs in all his films. Here, we find an entire film hinging on the word of a 14-year-old.

"A lie between you and me can't be hidden," Arthur Winslow warns his son, committing to remedy the situation when Ronnie gives him his word that he did not steal the postal order. From here, we must give up any hope of learning whether Ronnie is indeed innocent. Such details no longer matter to the plot, which is now free to explore the way in which relationships are affected by the family's decision to make every sacrifice necessary to clear Robbie of the charges.

Inevitably, Robbie's guilt or innocence will be determined by the court, and Mamet would never oblige us the luxury of flashing back in time to see "what really happened" with the stolen postal order.

Mamet's sense for capturing the subtle peculiarities of any style of speech pays off as a witty and intelligent screenplay, but skilled writing and direction will only get a film so far. Fortunately, Mamet chooses a cast that can take full advantage of the material. The actors come from different backgrounds and acting styles, combining experience on stage and in film, but they mesh wonderfully here.

As the earnest Winslow family patriarch, Nigel Hawthorne carries across the self-destructive lengths to which Arthur will go to clear his son's name. A gaze into his deep eyes reveals the unwavering trust (and potentially fatal pride) of his soul, conveying more than dialogue could ever tell us.

Mamet casts his wife, Rebecca Pidgeon, as Catherine Winslow, the politically-active daughter who risks pending wedding engagements to devote herself to the case. Cold and jerky in The Spanish Prisoner, Pidgeon seems to thaw slightly here. Her inexpressive, curt style of acting matches Catherine's personality and reinforces the contempt intrinsic to a young lady unable to assert her intellectual equality.

Jeremy Northam, comfortably returning to period dramas after a few wilder efforts, slyly pulls one over on us as Sir Robert Morton, the cocky, well-respected attorney who accepts the case (Edward Carson, the lawyer on whom Morton is based, also defended Oscar Wilde against the Marquess of Queensbury). Sir Robert is simultaneously charming and despicable, superficial and genuine, and it's easy to understand why Catherine would be captivated by him.

The Winslow Boy is the most unusual of courtroom dramas. We see none of the actual trial, and the little time we actually spend in the courtroom deals with arguments over whether the case should even go to court. Remember, Mamet brought us the dramatic trail scenes of The Verdict, so his omission of such details here says something about what this movie is really about.

Many viewers will find the main storyline intolerably slow, not realizing until too late that there is another level to the film that remains hidden until the closing scene. Not until after the film's off-camera climax (when the trial is decided) does Mamet reveal which two characters had really trusted one another most.

Viewers engaged by the story will pick up on the inevitable magnetism between Catherine and Sir Robert—two characters who compliment one another so completely—and recognize a passion that gives itself away through understatement and feigned indifference. These feelings aren't the carnal animal attraction of most films, but a deeper intellectual connection, the type of romance spurred on by the exchange of witty barbs and knowing looks. A kiss would shatter the delicate equilibrium Catherine and Sir Robert have established, but the maddeningly unresolved nature of their relationship leaves us oddly satisfied.

I have yet to see a Mamet script that works perfectly as a film, but The Winslow Boy comes close. This is less a story of back-stabbing and betrayal than his other films, but true to Mamet's form, the characters—each flawed in his own way—reveal their humanity through their weaknesses. Romantic and thoughtful, Mamet's newest film easily ranks among his best.