‘Oscar and Lucinda’: Visual Beauty in a Quirky Tale

Janet Maslin

Wednesday, Dec. 31, 1997 | 9:45 a.m.

Without doubt, there is no more eccentric story to be found on-screen right now than "Oscar and Lucinda," in which love, glass, Christianity and gambling somehow collide.

As directed exquisitely by Gillian Armstrong in a headstrong spirit that recalls her debut feature, "My Brilliant Career," this elliptical tale makes up in visual beauty whatever it lacks in universal meaning.

Which is a lot, given the quirkiness of Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel. The book's descriptive elegance and richly peculiar imagination would give the film a pedigree like that of "The English Patient" even without the presence of Ralph Fiennes, but this tale is much more remote.

With the singularity of what might be a real family history, it lets a present-day male narrator tell of Oscar Hopkins (Fiennes) and Lucinda Leplastrier (Cate Blanchett), kindred spirits who shaped that narrator's ancestral past. Also vital to the story of his creation are a glass church and a bet on whether it can be moved from Sydney to the remote north of Australia.

Red-haired, bashful Oscar is birdlike and shy, having been cowed early in life by a punitively devout father who disapproves even of such indulgences as Christmas dessert. ("Dear God," the boy prays, "if it be Thy will that people eat pudding, smite him!")

Lucinda, equally delicate in her own way, is also an heiress who becomes fascinated with the manufacture of glass. (As I said, this is one odd story.)

Before they meet, each has become addicted to gambling, although Oscar's eventual career as an Anglican minister does make it difficult for him to find suitable outlets.

But this is a film whose offbeat charms include the sight of clergymen betting about whether a tablecloth can be yanked sharply without anything on the table spilling. In their own way, once they meet and develop an instant affinity, Oscar and Lucinda find winsomely unexpected ways to gamble on life and love.

While Ms. Armstrong tells the long, rambling story of her characters with more than enough vigor to sustain interest, the film's most extraordinary aspect is its wonderfully luxuriant look. Gorgeously photographed by Geoffrey Simpson ("Shine"), it offers a steady supply of visual surprises within compositions quite suitable for framing. Making rhapsodic use of natural light and of carefully chosen objects, this is a film that can find something gorgeous even in a boatload of cauliflower.

Other strong visual assets are Luciana Arrighi's production designs, which lavishly transport the story from England to Australia, and the spectacular costumes by Janet Patterson ("The Piano," "The Portrait of a Lady"). The film often revels in its heroine's vivid personality by crowning her with something like a strikingly embroidered fez.

Ms. Blanchett, whose strength and vivacity recall the young Judy Davis of "My Brilliant Career," is appealingly well teamed with Fiennes, who manages to make Oscar as bashfully likable as he is quaint.

Despite the story's various sidetracks (involving Ciaran Hinds as another clergyman who admires Lucinda, and Tom Wilkinson, who will forevermore be remembered for "The Full Monty"), the film's essential sweetness and mystery come from two lonely people and the cosmic roll of the dice that brings them together.

"Oscar and Lucinda" is rated R. It includes profanity, much repressed longing and a sexual interlude.

PRODUCTION NOTES:

OSCAR AND LUCINDA

Directed by Gillian Armstrong; written by Laura Jones, based on the novel by Peter Carey; director of photography, Geoffrey Simpson; costumes by Janet Patterson; edited by Nicholas Beauman; music by Thomas Newman; production designer, Luciana Arrighi; produced by Robin Dalton and Timothy White; released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. 131 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Ralph Fiennes (Oscar Hopkins), Cate Blanchett (Lucinda Leplastrier), Ciaran Hinds (the Rev. Dennis Hasset) and Tom Wilkinson (Hugh Stratton).