Themes: Inheritance at Stake, Obsessive Quests, Gambling
Main Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Richard Roxburgh
Release Year: 1997
Country: AU/US
Run Time: 132 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Australian director Gillian Armstrong directed this Laura Jones adaptation of Peter Carey's 1988 Booker Prize-winning novel. In a lengthy flashback, Oscar Hopkins' great grandson (Geoffrey Rush) narrates the family history that led to his birth. On an Australian farm, Lucinda Leplastrier was tutored by her intelligent mother, a woman who took part in the early feminist movement. Oscar's lonely boyhood in rural England was under the watchful eye of his preacher father. At Oxford to train as a minister, the adult Oscar (Ralph Fiennes) feels he doesn't fit in and develops a passion for gambling, giving his winnings away to the poor. Oscar and Lucinda (Cate Blanchett) meet aboard a ship; he's off to the outback to work as a missionary, and she's returning from London after buying equipment for her glass factory. As mutual misfits, they have an instant attraction and quickly grow close, developing a romantic relationship based on trust. However, the Rev. Dennis Hasset (Ciarán Hinds) and Lucinda are friends, sharing an interest in glass. Convinced they are in love, Oscar embarks on an unusual and difficult task, building a glass church for the reverend, an ambitious project to attempt in the remote wilderness. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
This luminous literary adaptation stays just the right side of precious and pretentious in tracing the love between two unlikely gamblers, one a proto-feminist heiress who seems determined to squander both fortune and reputation, the other a sheltered Anglican minister who sees proof of God's handiwork in the constellation of his poker cards. Although it starts out like a cross between a Jane Austen comedy and a Thomas Hardy parable, Oscar and Lucinda eventually veers closer to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as its protagonists' flirtation with chance escalates into a wager as fraught with symbolism as it is with danger; religious philosophy is part of this film's very fiber, adding richness and depth to a gloriously unlikely plot. Ralph Fiennes is all red hair, sharp angles, and social ineptness as Oscar Hopkins, the motherless youth who rejects his father's Christian asceticism in favor of predestination and life in the casinos. As the convention-despising Lucinda, Cate Blanchett, in an early feature role, displays both the steely determination and the physical subtlety that would make her a star with Elizabeth the following year. It's really director Gillian Armstrong's show, though, and she navigates the novel's complexities with economy and visual flair, aided in no small part by Laura Jones' well-structured screenplay and cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson's ravishing images of landscapes both lush and bleak. A film this singular is bound to annoy lovers of convention, but those willing to follow Armstrong and her collaborators out on a limb will find their trust amply rewarded. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Clive Russell - Theophilus; Billie Brown - Percy Smith; Josephine Byrnes - Miriam Chadwick; Barnaby Kay - Wardley-Fish; Barry Otto - Jimmy D'Abbs; Linda Basssett - Betty Stratton; Geoffrey Rush - Narrator
Credit
John Ralph - Art Director, John Wingrove - Art Director, Paul Ghiradani - Art Director, Tom Nursey - Art Director, Mark Turnbull - Associate Producer, Alison Barrett - Casting, Kathleen Mackie - Casting, Janet Patterson - Costume Designer, Mark Egerton - First Assistant Director, Mark Turnbull - First Assistant Director, Gillian Armstrong - Director, Nicholas Beauman - Editor, Thomas Newman - Composer (Music Score), Russell Boyd - Camera Operator, Luciana Arrighi - Production Designer, Geoffrey Simpson - Cinematographer, Robin Dalton - Producer, Timothy White - Producer, Sally Campbell - Set Designer, Andrew Plain - Sound/Sound Designer, Ben Osmo - Sound/Sound Designer, Laura Jones - Screenwriter, Nigel Kirton - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Peter Carey - Book Author
