oldprof

Suuzin of San Francisco and I are soul mates! When I happened to mention my objection to this film at a gathering of women, they all glared at me & said, "What's with the deeper meanings? Just sit back & let this film wash over you!" OK, that's what 95% of the movie audience does, as I can tell from other "user comments" to the effect of "it's funny, what's with you?" Nevertheless, like Suuzin, I'm adding my comment about the "deeper meaning," which has to do with our WASP guy's consent to be baptized into the Greek Orthodox Church. Any Greek Orthodox theologians out there who can enlighten me as to whether the GO view of baptism is the same as the Catholics'? Because if it is, it wasn't necessary for him to be re-baptized if he had been baptized as an infant into ANY Christian denomination. That's what "one faith, one baptism" MEANS. Now, if his parents were Unitarians & never had him baptized, that's another story. (I suspected they were Episcopalians, from appearances.) At any rate, they should have been INFORMED about the baptism & invited to participate. (The baptism scene shows only her family members' being present.) So what am I, over-sensitive (I'm actually an agnostic, but take spiritual matters seriously) that I'd like to know if any actual acceptance of his fiancee's religious BELIEFS (if any) accompanied this baptism? I have seen too many married partners simply shrug and say, "Whatever" & "convert" to the other partners belief just to keep peace in the family. This is not what religion is (supposed to be) all about! So the whole point of the film is, as a WASP he's a tiny little nothing who needs to be co-opted by the Greeks to achieve any individuality & identity. Could be true--but how does he define the religious component of his "new self"?

Not seeing anything about Laura Morelli (the actress--I presume-who plays June) on your site, I went to the official Sony site for this movie; nothing there, either. Much gushing about the "young actors" & the "old actors" & the wonderful symbiosis between them; nothing about poor June (Jack & Amy's autistic daughter), who figures as the object of Amy's painful weekly pilgrimages to the "asylum" (!--Roger Eberts' word--shame, shame!) where June is lodged in apparent (expensive) comfort (all paid for out of the butcher's income, said to be on the wane? Or is this the quality of public institutions in England? One wonders!). And nothing about Laura Morelli on IMDb or the official web site--is she an actress or an actual autistic person brought in (one might say, exploited) for this role? The Sony site brings into high relief the additional contrast between four guys in a car having a grand time (both in the film & on the set) while Amy makes her lonely & unfulfilling pilgrimage to the "asylum." At the end, Amy decides to give up on June--the one decision in the movie that seems forced, arbitrary. If only she'd explained it a little more! Because June is part of Jack, & Jack is dead now, & Amy's ready to go on to another life with Ray, possibly in Australia? Because Amy would like to get in on some of the fun that "the boys in the car" are having? Because she realizes that selfless devotion to an apparently unappreciative person is not only unrewarding but probably foolish? As the sister of a mentally retarded woman, who doesn't seem to recognize me when I go to visit, I say, "Don't be too sure of that, Amy." Yes--the boys in the car are having a "great time." But they are all going to DIE, that's the message of that last image of the four of them on the pier. And, as we're told in the medieval play "Everyman," only one's good deeds go down with one into the grave.

It's not often one encounters a movie as well structured as "Lantana," in which nothing, even a small gesture like a woman putting her hand on a man's arm, is wasted. Wonder what the original play, "Speaking in Tongues" (an inscrutably allusive title) was like? Some might object that in a fairly large city (Sydney?) such as this appears to be, it's improbable that four couples' lives could become so multiply interconnected, but I believe this is a symbolic, thematic interconnectedness, like that of the characters in Dickens' "Bleak House." Yes, what we do in our "personal relationships" does impinge on other people, and on the world at large. As we watch four couples work out their marital problems to the conclusion, where one marriage is irrevocably shattered, two are on firm ground again and the continued success of the fourth (Jane's) is questionable, it feels good to be involved with movie characters of actual maturity, complexity, and depth.