MOVIE REVIEW : Early Roman ‘Knife’ Cuts Into the Psyche : A couple pick up a troubling hitchhiker in Polanski’s first full-length film, screening today as part of UCI’s series.

Ever have a conversation that essentially was friendly but vaguely unsettling at the same time, as if some tacit tension was growing between the two of you?

That’s the feeling at the core of Roman Polanski’s “Knife in the Water,” being shown at UC Irvine tonight as part of the campus Film Society’s Eclectic Flicks series. The director’s first full-length feature and an Academy Award nominee for best foreign film of 1962, it is intent on tapping into those ineffable sensations we face in situations that appear mundane but actually may be exceptional.

Polanski over-thinks much of this film--in the same ways that many of us may over-think the details at these moments. He reaches for a psychological instead of an active tone. But the movie still has a taut and creepy impact, like a bug crawling up your arm.

He creates that dynamic by putting three people together in an innocuous setting, a sailboat on a sunny day. “Knife in the Water” begins with Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and Christine (Jolanta Umecka) driving toward a dock, having an ordinary husband-and-wife-type talk. Suddenly, a young hitchhiker (Zygmunt Malanowicz) throws himself in front of their car.

Andrzej’s initial surprise and anger is replaced by curiosity and he impulsively invites the man, who remains nameless throughout, to join them on the lake.

Polanski, known for the bursts of violence in many of his films, here is more tuned toward hints of fury and danger that begin to well up in both men. Their conversation is relatively amiable, but a few comments are like thinly sheathed blades. Andrzej and the hitchhiker begin to compete, their masculinity at stake, with the lovely Christine as both cynical audience and prize.

“Knife in the Water”--which takes its title from the hitchhiker’s most valued possession, a stiletto, and the movie’s one violent act--may be too slow and implosive for many people. Very little specific happens; any dramatic momentum at all is provided by the dialogue and the actors’ body language and looks.

Further, apart from the few moments in the car, the only environment is provided by the small boat, and even while it’s on open water, the feeling is rarely less than claustrophobic: You never seem to shake the up-close presence of Andrzej, the young man and Christine.

There are few truly great scenes in “Knife in the Water” (Polanski hadn’t yet achieved an expansive, overarching cinematic style at this point in his career) but there are many good, even mesmerizing ones. Polanski saves the best for last when Andrzej and Christine, now free from the troubling hitchhiker, are forced to face the essence of their own relationship. Finding out what they mean to each other, if there’s honesty and integrity in their connection, becomes the most personal of moral crises.

“Knife in the Water” by Roman Polanski is being shown today at 7 and 9 p.m. in the Student Center/Crystal Cove Auditorium at UC Irvine, Campus Drive and Bridge Road, Irvine, as part of the UCI Film Society’s fall Eclectic Flicks series. Tickets: $4. Information: (714) 856-6379.