"Somebody is getting hurt already," Joe replies, with the carefully understated gravity that permeates this story.

The film's credibility relies heavily on Miss Ferguson's carefully understated central performance.

Geary almost smiled at the carefully understated words, but he managed to keep his expression stem, knowing the Marine commander probably wasn't yet in the mood to see the dark humor of the situation.

Despite Mr. Kline's carefully understated performance in this high-minded weepie about an architect mending his family fences while dying of cancer, the movie sinks into pretentious kitsch after a bracing start.

"He seemed to have carefully understated it," said Warren L. Dennis, a Washington lawyer who specializes in ailing savings and loan institutions.

Under the carefully understated direction of Robert Hupp, 14 members of the company make the 30-odd characters engage in something like the very interior meditation of a person nearly maddened by the lunacy of war.

So while the President is vain about certain things, these conceits come out in a carefully understated manner.

In the Opera Ensemble's affectionate revival, directed by John J. D. Sheehan and conducted by Jonathan Tunick, everything from the lighting to the performances is carefully understated.

The State Department issued a carefully understated rejection today of the legitimacy of the elections Sunday in Haiti, but said that the United States would deal with whatever government emerges.

Ms. Guey's Kerou, the most developed character, is a carefully understated portrait of youthful determination and stoic suffering.