"Oscar and Lucinda"
 A Film Review by
 Linda Lopez McAlister
 on "The Women's Show"
 WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL
 March 1, 1998

 There was a clear choice for which film opening in Tampa I'd see
this week.  It had to be "Oscar and Lucinda" (at the Tampa Theater)
because it was directed by Gillian Armstrong, one of several really first
rate women directors to come out of the part of the world "down under."
I've adminred most of the films by her that I've seen starting with "My
Brilliant Career" in 1979, "Starstruck" in the early 80s, "The Last Days
of Chez Nous" in the early 90s, and even her two best known forays into
Hollywood films, "Mrs. Soffel," and "Little Women."  I must say I tend to be
glad when feminist filmmakers I admire leave Hollywood and go back to
making films where they're likely to have more artistic say so over the
material and dare to do something that hasn't been done before.

 "Oscar and Lucinda" is that kind of a film.  Back in Australia,
but totally in command of her art and what must have been a huge
production budget for this really complex and elaborate film, Armstrong is
at the top of her form.  Adapted for the screen by Laura Jones from a
novel by Peter Carey, this is an extraordinary tale of two very
complicated people who end up in Australia in the mid 1800s.  Oscar (Ralph
Fiennes) is an Englishman who broke with his Pentacostal father to become
an Anglican priest.  He lives like an ascetic monk except for one thing:
he's a compulsive gambler who wins extraordinarily large sums of money
which he then gives to charity.  His tendency to see himself in terms of
an irredeemable sinner is, of course, magnified by his inability to stop
gambling, and, as a kind of penance, and despite his intense phobia about
water, he sails for New South Wales.  On the ship he meets Lucinda (Cate
Blanchett), an Australian heiress from the outback who has moved to Sydney
and become the owner of a glass factory; she had been in London buying new
machinery for her factory.  She, too, is a gambler.  Under the guise of
asking Oscar to hear her confession she lures him into a game of cards
that culminates in Oscar throwing the cards out of a porthole and
collapsing in a paroxysm of guilt and phobic terror.

       Their paths cross again in Sydney where again her gambling earns
her a reputation as a loose woman and his gets him defrocked.  Lucinda
takes Oscar in and they fall in love, but neither knows of the other's
feelings, since Oscar believes that she loves another priest who had been
disciplined by the Bishop for consorting with Lucinda and has been
banished to a remote village hundreds of miles away where he must hold
services in a barn.  Because their gambling has become so destructive of
their lives, they both finally make a pact not to gamble ever again. This
lasts only a few weeks when Oscar gets the extraordinary idea that
Lucinda's factory should prefabricate a chapel made of cast iron and glass
and deliver it to her friend, the Rev. Hassett. Oscar will deliver it to
him -- overland, because of his fear of water -- even though no one has
ever succeeded in making such a trip successfully even without cargo.
Thus comes about Oscar and Lucinda's final wager.  She bets her entire
fortune that he can't do it, against his future inheritance that he can.
Of course she wants him to succeed and come back safely for she wants him
to have her fortune and she wants him.  Here begins the last section of
this extraordinary film where it turns into as compelling an adventure
tale as you'd care to see.  Complicated by Oscar's failure to realize that
going the overland route to avoid water would still require the convoy to
cross six major rivers.  The events of the trek through the wilderness and
how the trip comes out I leave for you to find out.

 The film, despite its striking originality of plot, seemed to me
to have some things in common with a lot of other feminist films I like.
The device of having the story told in flashback by a contemporary man we
know is Oscar's great-grandson is a bit reminiscent of the framing of
"Like Water for Chocolate" where a woman of today tells her great aunt's
tale.  The quirkyness and dramatic intensity of these very complex
personalities rivals that of the characters in "The Piano."  Even minor
characters here have an emotional life and are not just cyphers.

 Armstrong's direction is superb as is the work of the
cinematographer, art director and costume designer.  This is a major film
that's so fully realized and so rich in every way you must put it on your
"Must See" list.


Copyright 1998 by Linda Lopez McAlister.  All rights reserved.  Please
do not reprint or reproduce this review without the permission of the
author:
mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu