OSCAR & LUCINDA

 

THREE STARS – THOUGHT-PROVOKING

 

 

       Compulsive religious behavior has a superstition about it that differs very little from that of a compulsive gambler.

       A compulsive religionist believes that certain rituals, properly done, will save his or her soul.  Love of God and love of others is often not present nor is love a primary motivator in the religionist’s life.

       A compulsive gambler is much the same.  Using gambling rituals and systems which have become sacred practices of their addiction, a compulsive gambler will sacrifice reputation, family, security and love  in service to their addiction.

       This truth of the similarities of these two addictions could be no more powerfully presented than in the film “Oscar & Lucinda.”

       Set within England and Australia, the story begins during the protected childhoods of Oscar (Ralph Fiennes) and Lucinda (Cate Blanchett).

       Oscar is the son of a harsh and rigid leader of the Plymouth Brethren sect.  Having lost his mother when he was 8, Oscar’s father becomes so bitter that he teaches his church to not celebrate Christmas.

       Lucinda is the daughter of a windowed, wealthy landowner who raised her as a “square peg in a world of round holes.”  Although raised with an independent spirit, Lucinda is as sheltered in her own way as Oscar.

       When Oscar is 16 years of age he is introduced to some wonderful Christmas pudding that his father harshly punishes him for eating.   Intuitively understanding that his father is wrong about God, Oscar sets out to discover what God wants from him.  But not knowing how to pray or how to form a personal relationship with God, Oscar devises a method of chance in which he divines that God wants him to leave the Brethren sect and become an Anglican.

       Although this changes Oscar’s life, it also sets him up to become a prisoner of gambling.  It is as a young adult in college that Oscar is introduced to the thrill of the wager.

       In a clinically correct statement, Oscar’s grandson who is narrating the film, tells us that Oscar won his first bet at the horse races, a fact which most compulsive gamblers report as the beginning of their enslavement.

       Lucinda is described by the film not as a compulsive gambler, but an obsessive gambler.  Her habit comes out of loneliness and a desire for excitement.

       Having inherited a fortune when her mother passed away, Lucinda sails to Sidney and purchases a glass-works factory.

       Oscar having graduated as an Anglican minister moves to Sidney as a way of getting his gambling addiction under control.  As often happens Oscar and Lucinda meet aboard ship when Lucinda confesses to him as a minister of her gambling addiction

        But rather than hearing her confession and being convicted himself, Oscar explains his perverted theology about God, faith, and gambling and joins her in her sin.  This act is both the cause of their ultimate sorrow as well as the beginning of a possible redemption.

         Oscar and Lucinda fall in love.  But since neither has learned from parents who were in love, or a church which taught how to love, they are inept at expressing their feelings one to the other.

       In tormented straights as Oscar is defrocked for his gambling, he turns to Lucinda for support.  In classic 12 step method, they promise each other to never gamble again.

       But life is much larger than just not being addicted.  They must now come to know how to love.

       In a distorted attempt to win her trust, Oscar convinces her to build a glass church and allow him to deliver it to a small hamlet down the coast of Australia.  She agrees when he offers to make it a bet.

       This is the opposite to a real solution.  Oscar and Lucinda were on the road to love and life, with all the depth and fulfillment a moral and committed live can give.

       Instead, trusting once more on the wager to bring them happiness, Oscar makes a journey that ends in the loss of all he had hoped to win.

       Although in the end, Oscar’s grandson tells the story of good out of his efforts, his and Lucinda’s love could have given them so much more.  Their story serves as a profound message to all of us.

      

708 Words

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