Expert piece of moviemaking, expert piece of storytelling, using gambling as a metaphorical gateway to the larger themes of chance, fate, the great unknown, religion, love, leaps of faith of all kinds. The story, from a contemporary novel by Peter Carey, follows two widely separated but converging paths in the middle of the 19th Century, one beginning in England, the other in Australia, coming together on the same boat from Bristol to Sydney, after such a long delay and with such long-range consequences as to strike a chord with the fans of Claude Lelouch, that virtuoso of the Long View. They are equally square pegs in a society of round holes, he a naif Anglican clergyman, she a barrier-vaulting independent businesswoman, both of them guilty gamblers on the side. There is also a knowing narrator (voice of Geoffrey Rush) who often seems to be speaking from the viewpoint of third-person omniscient, but whose connection to the related events is revealed to be more personal. ("In order that I exist," he confides to us at one point, "two gamblers, one obsessive, the other compulsive, must declare themselves.") And by the surprising end, the narrator assumes a place as a major character on a plane with the title pair. Oscar and Lucinda and Me, it might be called. He is a most unusual sort of major character. He is with us the whole time, and yet we barely notice him. We get an actual glimpse of him only at the last minute (and he is not Geoffrey Rush). We know very little about him except as a repository of information and wisdom. We get to know something of the cast and quality of his mind. We know that his is not a wasted life, not an unexamined life, but an appreciated, a cherished life. We know he sees life in the large. We know he sees the wonder of it, the mystery. We know all about him we need to know. Ralph Fiennes, Cate Blanchett, Ciaran Hinds; written by Laura Jones; directed by Gillian Armstrong. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd