Oscar and Lucinda ** (1997, Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett, Ciarán Hinds) – Classic Movie Review 10,629

Minister’s son Oscar (Ralph Fiennes) and heiress Lucinda (Cate Blanchett) fall in love in Victorian England in director Gillian Armstrong’s 1997 movie of Peter Carey’s mid-1800s period novel Oscar and Lucinda.

The film is a mixed blessing. On the one hand it is painstaking, conscientious and sometimes impressive, but it is also over-long at 132 minutes, soporific and uninspiring.

The acting is spot on, with Fiennes and Blanchett most impressive, and the film is made with a fine visual style but this largely lifeless art film can boast surprisingly little sense of drama, emotion or pacing. The climax with the sea-borne transport of the glass church is a little miracle, though.

It was nominated for one Oscar: Best Costume Design (Janet Patterson). It won five Australian Film Institute awards in 1998: Best Score (Thomas Newman), Cinematography (Geoffrey Simpson), Production Design (Luciana Arrighi), Costume Design (Janet Patterson) and Sound.

The screenplay is by Laura Jones. It is narrated by Geoffrey Rush.

Also in the cast are Ciarân Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Bille Brown, Richard Roxburgh, Clive Russell, Josephine Byrnes, Barry Otto, Linda Bassett, Gillian Jones, Robert Menzies, Adam Hayes, James Tingey, Matylok Gibbs and Sonia Ritter.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,629

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