OSCAR AND LUCINDA 1997
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon
3 :-( :-( :-( for the trials of gambling
We have a minister (Ralph Fiennes) who is scared of water, addicted to gambling, a bit of a wimp, a murderer, who wages his girlfriend's inheritance that he can deliver a glass church to the back yard of the world (Australia bush), before being seduced by a female vamp and drowning in the glass church ……and somehow I'm meant to be better off for having journeyed with this tormented man to his watery grave? Hah.
This product of this Peter Carey novel had me annoyed and bored to tears from the word gamble. To think that it was a prize-winning novel, had me convinced that it achieved it's end not so much for what was written, but how it was written. Yes, this movie is not for the pubescent adolescent waiting for their first taste of love, not for those in their twenties looking for true romance or those in their thirties searching for a spouse. OSCAR AND LUCINDA can be left for the time when the kids have come and gone, and you can once again afford to walk around the house naked and contemplate the meaning of what else to do with your life. Come to think of it everyone in the theatre was either carrying a frame or a walking stick. This made me feel awkward and strangely out of place for not having arrived on the same bus from the local retirement village.
Needless to say, the performances by Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett are superb, but what is the use of fine performances when the story line suffers from the angst of poor motivation. We have two obsessive/compulsive gamblers. One is a woman and the other an Anglican minister. Oh the dilemma the dilemma is like whether to light another fag when you are desperately trying to stop smoking. So the minister bites his nails, twitches nervously trying to water down his tainted conscience, becomes tormented by his lack of self control which ultimately results in a fool hardy bet that leads to his death. Undoubtedly, this man is in dire need of Gambler's anonymous, but I cannot bring myself to empathise with him. To think the entire situation could have been easily prevented by a simple ‘I love you' and not by ‘Lets make a bet that I can deliver a glass church to the outback'.….well annoys the hell out of me.
Full marks to Gillian Armstrong for tight direction, but really the story line majorly sucks.
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au
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