Wondrous Oblivion

Some good people in it.

There is hope out there, somewhere.....

I remember Dennis from Cider House Rules, but I don't think I've seen him elsewhere? Cricket doesn't have the movies made about it, like Baseball, or American Football (or even soccer). There were some feature length films made back in the 1950's, I think, but nothing since..... I wonder why that is? Maybe something to do with the English themselves and how they see Sport? Maybe.......... but Australians, don't see Sport in a similar way at all........... they're fiercely competitive, about ANY sport, and they don't make Sporting films either..... Any ideas out there?

This is a gem of a film which was the opener for the Maine Jewish Film Festival. But it is not about just one of these topics. It is a wondrous story which could take place anywhere in the world. The film succeeds because it uses tired themes ("there goes the neighborhood") and puts a fresh slant on them with terrific acting and cinematography. You do not have to know anything about any of the subjects, Jamaica, Judiasm or cricket, but you will learn something about humanity when seeing this film. Sure, it is not perfect but it is rare to see a bigger budget film handle these themes so well. This film is definitely worth seeking out.

David Wiseman loves cricket and follows it religiously despite not actually being any good at it. His efforts to get onto the school cricket team start and end with doing the scoreboard while at home his collection of player cards takes up his time. When his Jewish neighbours move out, the Wiseman's find themselves dropping down the neighbourhood suspicion list as the new neighbours are Jamaican. The eldest of the family, Dennis, immediately uproots the roses in the garden and begins doing who knows what, to the amusement of the neighbours. However when it transpires that they have been making a set of cricket nets David ignores the community disapproval and starts to play with the Samuels family.

Featuring a handful of people from Eastenders, UK actors and one Hollywood star this film was a strange find at the cinema but it understandably didn't do a great deal while it was there. From the trailer it seemed that it was clearly going to be about overcoming prejudice and using cricket as a plot device for this. However watching the film it doesn't seem to completely ever decide if it wants to explore this, the relationship between Ruth and Dennis or a coming of age story surrounding David. Although it is perfectly reasonable that the film would try to combine all three of these, it doesn't really pull it off as well as it could have done. Instead of pushing one thread it runs a middle ground for each one of them and in fairness it does it well enough to make for an interesting film albeit one that is neither that charming or convincing.

The cast help hold the threads together by being consistent in their performances. Smith does well in his role although he is perhaps too easily pulled around by the mix of directions associated with his character even if he does do well scene to scene. Lindo was a surprise find in this film mainly because of how famous he is; his character is hardly complex but he is charismatic and talented enough to do well with it regardless. Woof has a strange character and suffers from the film not really sticking with her threads in all regards. Townsend is solid in support while the rest of the cast fill in round the edges well. Nobody is brilliant but the material doesn't really allow for that on many occasions.

Overall then a pretty enjoyable film. It tends to take the middle-road in several threads rather than pushing it out on any one, which does rather reduce the impact while rounding the film out to be more about the people than any one theme. Not fantastic then but a nice film that made for an engaging watch nonetheless.

Wondrous Oblivion is neat and effective for what it is. In Cricketing terms, it's a sort of cinematic equivalent of a steady-going half century complete with the odd blemish that doesn't quite develop into a big hundred. You get the feeling it was made by someone fairly passionate about films and the art of film-making, someone that enjoys taking on subject matter which is fairly familiar but who isn't additionally afraid of tackling issues of discrimination and racism. On a technical level, Wondrous Oblivion works, well, near wonders. On a level of story telling and using an age old arc for its characters to undergo, let's just say the film works to a degree which will not, and consequently has not, seen it shatter any new ground and as a result, has perhaps faded into near oblivion.

The location is London, the year 1960; and the film tells the coming of age plus rise in cricketing ability of one young boy named David (Smith) on one strand with the arrival plus socially outcast-driven demise of a West Indian family who have moved in next door, a family headed up by Dennis (Lindo), on the other. The film's underlying idea is that sport can bring people together, and in a time that sees a white Britain have immigrants from the Caribbean arrive and all the questions that come with being in the presence of them, it is fitting that a cricket match at a local ground will see blacks and whites; West Indians and the English-alike, all gather around in one place together at one time in order to share a fondness for a sport being played out in front of them. The sport is Cricket. Cricket is the would-be first love of our lead, a fresh faced and distinctly innocent looking boy who doesn't exactly excel at the sport; relegated to mostly scoring Surrey's county matches and England's home Tests by way in some form or another. All this plus the persistent engaging in his own fantasy cricket matches in which player profile cards pit their wits against one another during which either end of a pencil is used to determine who does what. It would be fair to say David is wrapped up in his own little world.

Born to Jewish German immigrants himself, and therefore hardly into a Cricketing family of any kind, David's curiosity in the two things that will form the basis for his transition in the film arrive at once in the form of new immigrant neighbours and the item they set up in their back garden. What could it be? Fabric that aids in growing some kind of sprawling plant? Their own way to tell those next door that this is where their territory categorically begins? No, it's the cricketing net they construct in order so that they may have a bowl and a bat in their spare time. But David eventually bonds with the family's daughter, a certain Judy (Elliot), and before long connects with her in the same way he does with the sport of Cricket, only in a different sense.

Director Paul Morrison constructs an odd, consistently wavy sensibility about things within a period setting. I don't doubt the authenticity of the sets recreated for the era, but Morrison somehow manages to blend that raw, unhinged and really rather hostile 'look' of a kitchen sink drama of its time with several other sequences of a more lightweight, upbeat and romanticised nature that come with a similar atmosphere. For most of the time that the West Indians have only recently moved in next door, a lot of what we see of them in constructed from a gaze that sees the onlooking character peer down at them from the somewhat hallowed turf of their own home. Standing at a window looking at them in their kitchen doing whatever or in the garden building the Cricket net, the technique calls to mind a certain sense of trepidation of how young David views them – his point of view constructed as if it were a sense of curiosity blended with that want to keep one's distance and just survey. The technique is banished when he interacts with them more and more often, the stuffy and somewhat dismissive tone of the elderly English adults nearer the start of the film springing to mind as the only other time we've seen him previously interact with an adult that isn't a member of his family; Dennis' soothing, calm and relaxed voice plus mannerisms taking centre stage for a quick session of bowling. Unlike the stuffy, nonchalant English who dismiss his skills and relegate him to scoring his school's cricket matches, Dennis is patient with David and comes to coach him.

Morrison balances everything much like he balances the gritty, racially driven hatred of some scenes with the more uplifting mostly sweet sequences of David and Judy interacting in a young and naive manner at times of great tension: lopsided, but mostly feeling more important than it actually is because of the subject matter. A certain rawness desperately wants to kick at certain times, particularly towards the end, while a sub-plot involving David's mother and potential infidelity sort of exists to bulk out the runtime. But the film works on the whole, with the quirky and upbeat aesthetic creeping into realms of near fantasy when it transpires David, very briefly, captains a West Indian international: they're here because the West Indies, conveniently, are due to play England in a test series, although I looked it up and it appears South Africa were the touring side for the summer of 1960. Regardless, Wondrous Oblivion is worth seeing for the steady piece it is. Whereas a lesser film taking on the sort of varied material might've been clean bowled early on, Wondrous Oblivion provides a scratchy innings which survives a few scares, before going on to make a score of some extent.

A sensitive and well-made study of the impact of two waves of immigrants on London communities: the first in the form of a young family of German-born Jews driven out by Hitler, the second in the form of their new neighbours from Jamaica. Cricket is the medium which draws together young cricket-mad David and his new neighbours - especially the cricket-made father and daughter of the family. But the friendship also leads David's young mother, neglected by her workaholic, decent and God-fearing husband, to develop a crush on her more warm-hearted, more vibrant but also decent and God-fearing West Indian neighbour whose habit of spending all day in a string vest and more free-and-easy manner is something of a contrast with her husband's straightlaced attitude and permanent uniform of woolly cardigan. Both David and Ruth fall to the temptation to exploit their new friends: David uses Judy to help him improve his cricket, Ruth attempts to use Dennis for the sexual satisfaction she is missing out on as her husband works all hours to improve the family's fortunes (and send his children to expensive schools). But when Judy turns up at David's birthday party he turns her away; and when Ruth makes a pass at Dennis, she is politely but firmly repulsed. This is a lovely film that deserves to be remembered; it is very accurate of the period full of good little touches but also has a strong, positive ending in which both couples, and both families, become stronger and closer despite their diverging paths, as the enmity of the local racists draws them together in near-tragedy.