User reviews

Unique, hyper-real film where the dialogue is the main plot - and what a rivetting plot it is. I was very skeptical about Oleanna, and was really resistant to it - but was very surprised to find myself succumbing to it. If you love language, and know enough language, Oleanna will be a joy for you: because the dialogue is loaded with jokes about dialogue. You'll be able to pick the places where Bill Macy is saying non-words, pretentious words or jargons in his monologues - and notice where somebody is talking ambiguously, or not saying anything at all.

Its about words, talking and meaning. So there are lots of words for good reason.

Its very dialoguey dialogue: not the kind of things people say, but the kind of things writers write. Reminiscent of the verbal gymnastics of Samuel Beckett, and the twisting meanings of Catch-22. Or perhaps the comedic pretentiousness of Hal Hartley. Meaning is controlled by the powerful - that's the key. Whoever controls the conversation, the language, in this movie - controls the situation. So everything is either ambiguous or figurative. Mainly, the exact things the two say are not what's key. Its which one of them is talking.

The performances - well, Macy at least - are in an appropriately hyper-real tone to suit the hyper-real dialogue. The girl is not very good, but this is still a masterpiece of language. Its static, centring on two characters and one room, but for good reason - to put the words centre stage. I'm so shocked that i just watched a movie with two characters and one room, and was not only not bored once, but hanging on each word and found that the time flew by.

The moral of the story is that things are bound to go wrong if you talk to somebody for the length of an entire movie. You're bound to go nuts. The viewer is bound to go nuts just listening to William H Macy in the first half-hour of the movie - you'll be amazed that purely talking to someone, using words, can make you feel that you're trapped, that you can't win or even escape.

Quite brilliant, really.

8/10. Essential viewing. I never knew dialogue held this power. A unique discovery.

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.

David Mamet's "Oleanna" is a harrowing, horrifying, gut-wrenching portrayal of two human beings who have entered into - as John, the professor played by William H. Macy declares - an agreement as to certain forms and institutions - and the institution of grading is, though the catalyst for what follows, the least of concerns here.... "Oleanna" is set squarely in the midst of contemporary academia, but the issues it addresses are more far-reaching than those pertaining solely to classrooms and the offices of intellectuals. That said, many may have difficulty relating to the characters and to the specifics of the situation in which they find themselves - the drama is more often than not a drama of words, ideas - "discourses." But these are, ultimately, only the incidentals - or better, the particular manifestations - of what is at root as "simple" as a basic communication breakdown: "I don't understand" is a phrase uttered countless times by both of the protagonists/antagonists. And ultimately, this is what "Oleanna" is really "about": the difficulty - the impossibility?, as it is suggested - for two people to understand each other on the most fundamental level.... The "plot," such as it is, is rather simple: a private meeting between professor and student yields two wildly divergent ideas of what actually took place, and why. Carol, an intense and troubled young student, is concerned with her apparently miserable grade in a course taught by John, and goes to meet him in his office to discuss it. Initially, the audience's sympathies are squarely with Carol - especially in light of the brusque, brutal, even cruel manner with which John initially dismisses her. But slowly, John softens - he begins to see himself in the young girl, and soon he allows his guard to slip - he "dissolves the boundaries between teacher and student" and undertakes to help Carol as a fellow, sympathetic human being.... The equilibrium - if in fact there ever is any at all - is not, however, to last for long; the encounter results in a savage power-struggle in which each participant fails to connect with the other and, ultimately self-absorbed, fails to understand the other's position and motives. "Oleanna" is really about the consequences, it seems, of abstraction - and Mamet and his actors do a wonderful job of demonstrating the disjunction between the real, human core of individuals and the superficial personae that are variously self-adopted and assigned by the other. There are several moments where entente seems on the very verge of realization, in which "feelings" emerge to bridge the gaps separating the middle-aged, middle-class, white male teacher and the young, lower-class, white female student - but the moments are always interrupted by one or the other of the two participants, through, basically, self-absorbed self-indulgence of immediate concerns - be they material or psychological. And each immediately falls back into the traditional, comfortable role s/he has been playing. This film troubled me a great deal - both at the time I watched it, and later. There are, in fact, no easy answers, and the tagline "whichever side you choose, you're wrong" has come to seem to me much truer than I at first thought. The film really is a Foucault-informed meditation on power and discourse - both consciously exercised and unconsciously-assumed. But ultimately, I think, the film indicates that no solutions can be discovered in the very foundation of the problem - the modern tendency to abstract identity from socio-political and intellectual discourses. John seems much closer to the truth than Carol - but he is no less wrong for it - for he fails to "practice what he preaches," whether or not he knows it. These issues are "universal" in today's post-modern Western world - but perhaps nowhere are they better exemplified, or more serious, than in academia, where words are the foundation of life itself. As a chosen academic myself, and as both student and teacher, I found this film woefully plausible (in many respects - the fact that even a second, let alone a third and fourth meeting ever took place is admittedly rather incredulous) and relevant; quite frankly, it terrified me. I can honestly say - even considering my guilty addiction to cheap horror flicks - that "Oleanna" is the scariest movie I have seen in years....

The dialogue is difficult to get past -- you want to grab the characters one at a time by the throat so the other one can at least finish a sentence or thought without interruption. But if you stick with it, the characters do deliver on what had to be a difficult script. And I found the irony of the story line to be the reward. It is a mind game -- not for the casual viewer.

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.

Student Carol (Debra Eisenstadt) visits Professor John (William H. Macy) to discuss how she failed his course but the discussion takes an awkward turn.

Roger Ebert, who loved the play, was "astonished" to report that Oleanna was not a very good film, characterizing it as awkward and lacking in "fire and passion". He does think the play 9and to some extent the film) makes clear how men and women can see things two different ways. He freely admits he sides with the male point of view while others have argued that the student was in the right.

Overall, I did not really care for the movie. I like Mamet and I love his dense writing, but it seemed to fall flat here. Macy is alright, but the student is annoying. She comes across as either stupid or in some way stunted. The repetition is annoying, too, as how many times must she ask about his house?

Mamet seems to be taking on political correctness, which is at its worst in academia. The professor finds himself in a Kafkaesque fix when trying to help a naive female student. She is later used as a tool by a radical feminist group, to attack the professor, the administration, and patriarchal society, blah, blah, blah. I have heard that the stage production was very good, but the movie sucks. The characters are intensely irritating. I realize that this was deliberate, but it was overdone to the point of ruining the show.

If you ever have the urge to hate a movie character, this is the movie to watch. I hate the character Oleanna more than anything ever. But that is exactly what the story is going for and if you feel like getting really angry or want to truly feel the emotions of a movie, than this movie is amazing. William H Macy plays an extremely likable character who is screwed over by a heartless feminist b****.

I was shaking with rage (literally physically shaking) during the course of this movie and really just wanted to find a gun, find Oleanna, and murder her in cold blood. But, fortunately for me, Oleanna is just a character, so I went on with my life. I would advise seeing this movie with a towel to bite down on and with a lot of patience to sit through without throwing something at the TV.

If you want a movie where emotions run high, definitely see this movie. If you want even just a shred of joy in your movie, avoid this movie at all costs.

Oleanna (1994)

A deeply intimate, conversational, quiet movie with "serious" intentions. It means to say something about fidelity and love and a common situation of an awkward attraction between two people.

And I found it stilted and false. It depended most of all on a kind of believability. This is about a professor (male) and his student (female). You know what happens next, sort of. Except that it doesn't quite become emotionally interesting. It's not just people spilling their interiors--it's a lot of talk, and so therefore a lot of thoughts in words. Which is very different than emotional conflict.

It depends enormously on the writing, which is just forced and wrong. The acting is fine, but as stiff at times as the writing. It may not matter but I'm a professor and I found it all improbable. It's almost like it was written by someone who didn't know this world, and yet the stiffness of it makes it seem professorial. (The writer, for the record, is not a professor.)

The professor in the movie is played by William Macy and he's not terrible (he's the familiar character he plays so well). The student is more awful, really, played by Debra Eisenstadt. But then, I'm not sure anyone can play (act) these lines with conviction. So we turn to David Mamet, one of the great lionized playwrights of our time, and a writer with a stunningly uneven career. I love his best work. I'm not sure what the point here was. It's arrogant and affected and boring capital B.

I saw what this play illustrates in college in the early 1990s. Carol keeps referring to "my group." We can assume it's a militant feminist student organization, but it could one of many antagonistic outfits steeped in identity politics. These groups always claimed they wanted justice and equality. I participated in several such groups and I quickly observed they care for neither equality nor justice; what they wanted was deference, authority, and often revenge. John tells Carol several times he thinks she is angry. He is correct, of course. What John does not realize from the moment Carol sets foot in his office is he's a dead man. He is her prey. Carol is a type of student I knew well. She is quite intelligent. She is, however, confused and angry. On top of that, she suffers from depression, which diminishes her cognitive abilities. In self-righteous sociopolitical outrage, her "group" has given her a scapegoat--the white male establishment. Her "group" has also given her a deluded purpose--tear down the white male establishment. Much of what some commentators here attribute to John's "stilted" nature is actually Mamet's writing style. However, John is indeed stilted. He is a nerdy college professor. I met many of them too. He lives in his ideas. He pursues ever more clever theories about life and learning. Ironically, he is a bit hazy on what's going on in the here and now. He cannot read Carol's rage and this is his Achilles heel. Carol did not start out as a "bad" person. She started out as a "sad" person. I don't remember the exact quote, but John tells her: The Stoic philosophers say if you take away the statement "I have been injured" you take away the injury. Something like that. Carol's "group" has done quite the opposite. It has goaded her to build her entire life around being injured and being a victim. This is the bread-and-butter of "identity politics." By the time Carol enters John's office she has been trained to kill careers the way the drill sergeant's charges have been trained to kill enemy soldiers in "Full Metal Jacket." "Oleanna" is a tragedy about the consequences of misguided anger. The term "politically correct" is now no more than a term of abuse bandied about by right-wing half-wits; however, I remember the year 1990 and the pins leftie militants sported: "PC and Proud." I saw a lot of people get hurt by political correctness but two things I never saw PC give anybody: 1. Real empowerment. 2. Happiness. David Mamet nails the essence of PC in "Oleanna."

Hard to sit through this one, and if that's what you want, then by all means it's worth a rental. Basically, two characters, a male professor and a female student. The way I understand it, Mamet's play about power differentials is supposed to strike a balanced, provocative view. The first half of it, we're generally supposed to sympathize with the student, the second half with the professor. Problem with the movie is, neither character comes off as likeable enough for one to keep very interested in what happens. The professor (to whom the movie in general is stacked in favor) is a reasonable though somewhat smug fellow, though in the final climactic scene, all sympathy evaporates with his actions. And sympathy for the female student evaporates much sooner. She is at best a humorless, naive zombie and at worst a monstrous extortionist. Anyhow, there's no way you believe for a second that she'd be flunking the guy's class, especially with the assiduous way she scribbles down in her notebook every little thing he says (like Egghead from those Foghorn Leghorn cartoons). Both come off as somewhat hypocritical (why is the professor teaching in a system he has utter contempt for? why is the student going to such lengths to protest her grade from a system she over-idealizes?) Very depressing material.

Amazing performances as the two actors carry the whole movie. The professor and a female student start by having sort of an "extra help" session, as the student complains that she feels lost in the profs class. The story follows their dialogue into an intellectual, and finally an emotional, hell that has disastrous consequences. Their "journey" touches on sexual harassment, the relationship between student and teacher, the value and purpose of higher education, and other sort of social ills.

Without revealing too much, it's a bit like watching a slow moving train wreck. William H. Macy's character talks his way deeper and deeper into disaster. I think the character was so full of himself, that he completely ignores the clear signs given to him by the student that they were heading into dangerous territory.

I like David Mamet's work. I just felt this one got weighed down by all the verbal gymnastics.

I found the film truly excellent and it went way beyond my expectations. It's about a he and a she. Nothing is what it seems initially, and everyone is somehow right. What is fascinating is the way you change sides, and how everyone is convincing.

This is a movie of debate and meaning. And truly fascinating debate(whatever you might think initially, it's no boring movie for literature addicts!).

Also I thought the final scene was amazing as I could identify myself with the feelings of the professor, but at the very end there were no good guys.

WATCH IT!

"Oleanna" is a claustrophobic, dialogue-intensive, manipulative two actor pseudo-intellectual sorta-psycho-drama which shows a shrinking violet student seeking help from her professor and then turning into an emasculating pitbull. A spellbinding flick for those who don't nitpick the script, this highly improbable story offers some serious entertainment value. The fact is, however, it would not be difficult to write a similar story for we all live in a world of push-pull communication whereby productive bilateral communication requires a desire to understand by both parties. Forsake this principle and you can manipulate a story in any direction with relative ease. No biggie but a worthy effort.

This movie was so obviously converted from a play. The dialogue was stiff and unmotivated, and by the end of it, I wanted to beat the girl up, too. Plus, people DON'T TALK LIKE THAT!!! A little emotion from the characters would have helped, too.

I've read some of the comments and they are simply ridiculous. This is a masterpiece of social criticism, period. If you don't understand it, that's your problem, but this is one of those intellectual achievements that are overlooked at their release and appreciated 100 years later..

This society is sick: feminism, political correctness, "sexual" correctness and God knows what. And Mr Mamet analyzes one of the most pathetic and odious aspect of the matter: sexual harassment (Once I've read a feminist saying that rape is "subtle" and women who thought they had consenting sex might have actually been cheated - by evil men, I suppose). I don't even know how the producer could find a distributor for this film.. Thanks God he did.

People, you do not deserve a film like this. Go get a crappy independent movie!

An American drama; A story about a flustered college student who visits the professor who failed her in one of her subjects. Confrontation leads to an escalation of a feud. This two-hander has an intriguing premise, if somewhat over-simplified. The effectiveness of its message, about social mores of a teacher-pupil relationship and the nature of learning, is thwarted by characters who begin to grate in their prolonged animosity and odious reasoning. The stagy dialogue descends to stilted delivery - possibly not the fault of the actors - but the director who failed to adapt the shooting script to produce a more natural sounding interaction. Nonetheless, the power struggle is arresting and the performances are adroit, with Macy and Eisenstadt well cast in their roles.

What garbage! Two characters, neither of whom is very likable, arguing with utter pretention for 90 minutes. What's most interesting, relatively speaking, is how the woman keeps haranguing the professor about the hyper-intellectual words he uses, but she gets more pretentious with her vocabulary every scene.

This may have been a good play -- I doubt it, but maybe -- but it definitely does not translate to the big screen.

For those who saw the theatrical production, this version seems flat even though William H. Macy repeats his stage performance and the script is virtually the same. Mamet uses every conceivable camera angle in an attempt to ventilate the play for the screen. Somehow it just doesn't come off quite as well as seeing the same show in the live theater. I think people who never saw the stage show will still argue just as forcefully over who is right and who is wrong. It is a minor criticism, but I was constantly distracted by the idea that a non-tenured professor would have an office suite on the campus larger than any president of a major university.