Oleanna

This is a movie not without faults -- the dialog at the beginning is stilted, William H. Macy's performance is not without its weak spots -- but in spite of those quibbles, is a compelling, intriguing film.

The movie centers on the relationship between a student and a professor at an unnamed university. She goes to him for extra help in his class (but she may be just trying to set him up for a sexual harrassment lawsuit). He tries to help her with her studies (but may be trying to dominate and have innappropriate relations with her at the same time). As the relationship turns into a struggle, the viewer finds him/herself switching sides early and often. The tension in the film becomes the viewer's tension; during the final scenes you'll barely breathe.

The tagline is right -- whatever side you choose, you're wrong. I've seen this movie lambasted as being anti-feminist, lauded for being pro-feminist, hated for being anti-establishment, pro-establishment, racist, sexist, etc. In reality, it is all and none of these things. Oleanna is a mirror that forces us to examine and discuss our own convictions. That it accomplishes this while still being an exciting film makes it worth seeing more than once.

The tag line of this movie is that "whichever side you take, you're wrong," is itself wrong. There clearly is a wrong and right side. If we were to sit Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin down and show them only the first half of the movie, even they would be pressed to find any sexual harassment (let alone rape). We would find a self-absorbed professor, and knifing student (whose clipped speech, and apparent dumbfoundedness is belied later when she fabricates, embellishes, and spins the truth for her PC ends). If being self-absorbed is enough to get one fired and falsely accused of rape, then Mamet's lesson must be that the feminist orthodoxy has gone too far.

This film is basically about a student who cannot accept she's failing class and decides to ruin her teacher's life by framing him. Around this basis, a quite witty dialogue is unfolded, which makes the movie intellectually stimulating and powerful. Additionally, it depicts the invalidity of some axioms of both professor and student community and portraits how people manipulate the truth to serve their personal interests. A very strong point is how pompous and cliche arguments about void pseudo-liberties alienate people from truly disastrous and desperate situations. As I see from other reviews, the play was much better, but unfortunately we didn't have the chance to see it here in Greece yet, so my first impression of Mamet's work was from this movie.

One writer perceptively suggests that the term "Oleanna" was used to describe swampland being sold as prime real estate.

I think the primary context in which the title "Oleanna" is to be understood appears in a "folk" stanza preceding Mamet's published edition of the play:

"Oh to be in 'Oleanna,'/ That's where I would rather be,/ Than be bound in Norway/ And drag the chains of slavery."

And so, Oleanna is a version of a Utopian promised land, and in the context of the play, the gateway to this better tomorrow is through the halls of Academia. Susan, the victim of her own false expectations of how the university is to transform her existence, repeatedly mentions the struggle she had to endure in order to get into college. For her, academic success is central to her vision of a better life. John, the pedantic professor, also sees Academia as the means to a comfortable, upper middle class existence with his new house, wife, and son. All he needs to do is make tenure, and his future is secured.

However, John presents himself as an academic bad-boy who debunks the very Academia with which he is trying to secure his comfortable future. This ridicule of the academic process strikes at the heart of Carol's dreams of a better future through education. She quite rightly sees that the professor is trying to have it both ways--playing the academic outsider while trying to kiss-up to the tenure committee in order to ensure his cushy new home in the suburbs. When someone's dreams are threatened, they become angry and strike out, however they can.

This is a brilliant movie. Anyone working in a high school or university, and anyone contemplating an academic career, needs to watch it, and allow it to soak deep into the structure of the brain. Perhaps that academic career isn't such a good idea, after all. Maybe that utopian real estate is really swampland. At any rate, one needs to be very, very careful when dealing with students.

One general misunderstanding (in my opinion) of Mamet is that he tries to write realistic dialog. In Oleanna, Mamet seems to want to speak directly through each character in a very academic verse which is well suited to the film/play. The issues of sexual misconduct and the way perspectives differ between men and women make this an interesting journey. And if you are a Bill Macy fan, you will like the movie.