Oscar And Lucinda Details

Adapted from Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel, this story about two Victorian eccentrics with a passion for gambling was never going to be an easy choice to make into a film. Director Gillian Armstrong was undaunted, but unfortunately the end result is an irritating and generally incomprehensible art movie. Anglican minister Ralph Fiennes's wager to heiress Cate Blanchett that he can transport a glass chapel across the Australian outback is reminiscent of Klaus Kinski hauling a boat overland in director Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, but this is far stranger and much less spectacular. The cast of Fiennes, Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush has some appeal, but this is very pretentious if not total twaddle.

In this exquisite adaptation of Peter Carey's novel, gambling is more than an obsession - it's a leap of faith. For... read more on Time Out