movie review - Oscar and Lucinda
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
This review contains spoilers, be warned.
This is an Aussie period flick set in the 1800's, when real ladies were compulsive gamblers, Anglican priests were neurotic and corrupt, and 'the common man' was likely worse. It's a love story, of sorts, though I'm not sure what is portrayed is as much love as it is empty obsession. That's fine, except that much of what happens in the movie isn't adequately explained by antecedant developments, or by the traits of the characters themselves. Things just seem to happen in a disjointed, rushed way. I didn't know it when I watched this flick, but it was adapted from a successful novel. Now that I do know it, I'm not surprised.
This carries over into the way that the movie is full of unexplainable character behaviour, such as: the strong female lead who - easily navigates a male-dominated world - falling for a USELESS twit of a leading man (not the usual manly bastard, but a quivering mass of stutters and inaction that makes yer average Woody Allen character look like the terminator); the main character developing from a religious zealot to a gambling addict in a single afternoon; the main character's priest mentor falling off the rails into gambling and suicide himself; the able and knowledgable man hired to lead the lunatic church-delivery expedition (a trek 'crucial' to the movie's last third) descending into a whoring, murderous thug in the space of thirty seconds; an all-but-anonymous character in a distant town - who appears in two inexplicably inserted minutes of film - suddenly spiking the entire movie with an act that just can't be believed, and so on.
In all, a perplexing and disappointing film.
Not recommended.