Oleanna

David Mamet's play Oleanna startled audiences with its aggressive, unflinching examination of gender politics.  For some reason, Mamet decided to adapt it to film in 1994.  It does not seem to be the most adaptable material, though this hasn't stopped anyone before.  Can such a talky, potentially claustrophobic piece work as a movie? I say yes, though I have not seen (or read) the play.  Roger Ebert, who had, did not agree.  I came in knowing only a vague summary, that the story involved a male teacher and his female student, who levels charges of sexual harassment against him.  

William H. Macy reprises his role from the stage. He plays a university professor named John who is under review for tenure.  He's also about to buy a new house.  One hurried afternoon, John is visited by Carol (Debra Eisenstadt), a student who is failing his class.  She's panicked and desperate.  Tries to convince him to give her a passing grade.  Her conversation with him is littered with interruptions, from his retorts and the telephone alike. She didn't understand the book he wrote.  His vocabulary is often indiscipherable to her.  She wonders why he doesn't use simpler words that mean the same things.  It's clear she's a mediocre if not a poor student. John is careful (he thinks) not to insult or condescend to her.  He goes off on long winded tangents, even as he keeps his wife and a realtor waiting off campus. All the while, Carol scribbles in her notebook.

Some time later, we learn that Carol has drafted a complaint against John.  She feels he was entirely inappropriate with her.  She turned his concern and perhaps poorly chosen words against him.  His tenure is now in question.  He addresses the complaints, but also continues his own rants about his plight, perhaps a further riff on the "white man's burden" he began previously.   The meeting ends with John grabbing her arms forcefully.  She screams and runs out, looking for rescue from faculty down the hall.

A third and final meeting is even worse.  Events occur that are irreversible. By the climax of OLEANNA, we have witnessed a man picked clean.  It would be easy to take the movie as an examination of a troubled, perhaps evil young woman who decides to get back at her professor, who represents everything she has not/can not attain.  A political allegory.  But did John pull the trigger on himself?  Speaking and speaking some more as if tightening a noose.  Laying bare the oppressing white male who has prevented women from advancing in society.

Sounds like something out of today's news.  How many Millenials are crying "rape", so to speak, at all their perceived injustices? How many organizations require a requisite number of women, African Americans, Asians, what have you to fill a position even if they are not qualified? Was Mamet using Carol as a mouthpiece for liberal America? His right wing political views by now are well known.

OLEANNA is certainly a treatise on feminism, one that will seem even more vivid in the years following the #MeToo movement.  One may also simplify by examining it as a generation gap tete-e-tete.  Whatever your take, whichever side you may sympathize with, as the film's tagline states, "you're wrong". At least about who's right.  The viewer is guilty in some fashion.

So much food for thought.  Mamet does avoid staginess for the most part.  This wasn't as static an experience as I expected.  The actors are very good.  Commanding even.  Thankfully, the writer/director restricts things to the two characters.  Adding others would cheapen the drama.  But maybe Mamet should've just filmed a performance of the play? Either way, post viewing discussion will be all but unavoidable in mixed company.