"Oscar and Lucinda" is about two young people, Oscar and Lucinda, who start out on opposite sides of the world in the 19th century. They have a mania in common: gambling. Oscar(Ralph Fiennes, doing a spot-on impression of Juliet Stevenson) is a troubled divinity student at Oxford. One day, a fellow student drags him
to the racecourse and Oscar wins his first bet. He continues to do well with gambling; donating most of what he wins to charity. But terribly wracked with guilt, he chooses missionary work in New South Wales, Australia. Lucinda(Cate Blanchett) is an heiress from rural Australia. Almost on a whim, she decides to purchase a glass works with her inheritance. She is introduced to cardplaying by her social acquaintances and is hooked. "Oscar and Lucinda" is a beautiful, well-made allegorical movie about the debate between a fixed universe and what chance has to play in our lives. Oscar has a firm belief in a higher power but he still gambles. It's a contradiction when he introduces chance into a world he believes has been designed by a higher power. Water has a symbolic part to play in this movie, too. In Christianity, water is seen as a cleansing agent and is used for baptism but Oscar has a raging fear of it due to him associating it with his mother's death. The movie is also helped along by fine support from Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds.
June 20, 2005
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