Oscar and Lucinda

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© A.J. Malouin 2008

(Rating: 3 by Al.)
(See our side-bar page “How Caryl & Al Rate Movies”)

(1997/USA/Australia/UK. Directed by Gillian Armstrong.)
“Oscar and Lucinda” is off to a slow start, it seems, but soon the performances take on full-gallop brilliance.

Once we get past the seven-minute childhoods of Lucinda and Oscar, the Cate Blanchett and Ralph Fiennes playing those roles as adults are electrifying.

Wonderful performances are also turned in by Cianan Hinds as the Reverend Dennis Hasset, Tom Wilkinson as Hugh Stratton, and other excellent actors, as well.

In the mid-1850s, Lucinda Leplastrier and Oscar Hopkins are two sweet-spirited souls, each of whom has a Gambling Jones.

Oscar acquired his when he was introduced to horse-racing afternoons by a fellow student while both of them were in the Anglican seminary.

Lucinda acquired hers when she started playing cards in the drawing rooms of London’s high society after inheriting a fortune, the terms of which required her to leave the rural life which she loved.

Ducks to water came both of them, when it came to wagering on… well, when it came to wagering on Almost Anything.

The two meet on a voyage from England to Australia, and the way this happens is filmmaking, acting, and story-telling of the Absolutely Highest Order.

The sea voyage is a disaster-in-the-making for Oscar, who has a dread of the ocean that throws him into fits, every time he sees it.

The only way he can literally survive the voyage is to sail on a ship sooooo large there’s a good chance Oscar can remain below decks for the entire two months the trip will take.

He must survive the trip, however, for he is punishing himself by taking the most-remote post he can find: the Australian Outback.

Lucinda, meanwhile feels the need for confession.

Once ensconced in Australia, Lucinda uses her inheritance to buy a glass-blowing factory. Oscar eventually becomes her confident, advisor, and (we can tell it!) sooooo much more. The white heat here is not only from the magnificently filmed set pieces in the glass-blowing factory.

Fiennes and Blanchett turn in performances that define what the craft of acting in its most beautiful form..

Both of their characters, knowing that they have a gambling problem, decide to support each other in swearing off gambling.

This support and friendship threatens to bloom into some thing much more.

Oscar is mesmerized by Lucinda *and* the talents of the workmen in Lucinda’s glass-blowing factory. He envisions a church made entirely of glass that will be erected in Outback Australia.

He bets Lucinda everything he owns that he can get the glass church she creates to an Outback town in four weeks, by taking it over land.

The thing is? Oscar is not *only* trying to prove he can get the church to the Outback. He is also trying to prove *himself* to Lucinda.

Of course, love being what it is, there is no reason for this folderol.

Lucinda reads a note from Oscar which reveals what he is really trying to prove. She sets out by sea for the same Outback town that Oscar is trying to reach by land.

Why does love have to hurt soooooo bad?

The story, acting, cinematography, art direction, and musical score of this film are all amazing. If you never rent “Oscar and Lucinda,” you will be denying yourself one of the great pleasures of your lifetime.

(2 hr 12. Rated R in the USA for a scene of sexuality, and for brief violence. In English. With Ralph Fiennes as Oscar Hopkins, Cate Blanchett as Lucinda Leplastrier, Ciarán Hinds as Reverend Dennis Hasset, Tom Wilkinson as Hugh Stratton, Richard Roxburgh as Mr. Jeffries, Clive Russell as Theophilus, Bille Brown as Percy Smith, Josephine Byrnes as Miriam Chadwick, Barnaby Kay as Wardley-Fish, Barry Otto as Jimmy D’Abbs, Linda Bassett as Betty Stratton, and Geoffrey Rush as The Narrator [voice.])