When people describe a film, whether it's one they made themselves or they saw, and say it's 'exploring' a character doing something it can seen like a vague or nebulous way to talk about a film that usually should have a solid story or plot. Lianna is an excellent example though it an "exploration" of a woman who seeks out her own sexual desires despite (or perhaps because of) her marriage to a man and having young children.
What could/would usually be a story, or as typical a one you might see here, is that the affair Lianna has with her female psychology professor would last the whole film leading up to a blow out, big argument. There isnt much room for her to be deceptive however; she tells her husband as soon as it happens, and the fall out really is the core conflict. And it's not as if Sayles has any easy-to-chart story points like they teach in hacky screenwriting classes: it's this feeling more than anything else that she is sometimes looked at as an 'other' and it only fully comes to light when she goes to a gay tavern and... There's really nothing that should be wrong about all this.
In other words, Sayles's second film as director is this sometimes quiet, sometimes intensely felt and dramatic (the husband is a real SOB but fully believable, not in any over the top way, just a stuffy do-what-I-like prick), and has this character at the center who we have no idea what will happen with her. Frankly it's because she doesn't know, and this includes when her kids find out the truth and when (minor spoiler) due to no major fallout her original relationship with the professor doesnt work out.
It's all naturally acted and presented, but Sayles knows that if he can keep his audience interested past it being an "issue" movie, that it's simply about this human being coming to terms and figuring out her life in difficult, adult ways, that's all he's got to do.
If anything it has more of the flow of a novel - if I were told it was a book beforehand of understand - as everything feels and looks and the actors all have this closely done observation of how grown ups do and respond and process information. That the new love/professor is a psychology professor helps, but it's not used as a gimmick or something like that. A major leg up is that Linda Griffiths, an actor I wasnt aware of at all before this, does so much at times with only a little on the page (or maybe it is there and she gets it every step). She could play certain scenes in a more melodramatic way (once or twice she goes for it, when the script really calls for it), but a lot of the time it's intense in another way, like things could escalate but she is keeping it softer, more closely felt. If it has been made a few years earlier I coild have seen Diane Keaton or someone like that. Thankfully, shes a revelation here, as is the movie in general.
Oh, and Sayles is a really good actor!
What could/would usually be a story, or as typical a one you might see here, is that the affair Lianna has with her female psychology professor would last the whole film leading up to a blow out, big argument. There isnt much room for her to be deceptive however; she tells her husband as soon as it happens, and the fall out really is the core conflict. And it's not as if Sayles has any easy-to-chart story points like they teach in hacky screenwriting classes: it's this feeling more than anything else that she is sometimes looked at as an 'other' and it only fully comes to light when she goes to a gay tavern and... There's really nothing that should be wrong about all this.
In other words, Sayles's second film as director is this sometimes quiet, sometimes intensely felt and dramatic (the husband is a real SOB but fully believable, not in any over the top way, just a stuffy do-what-I-like prick), and has this character at the center who we have no idea what will happen with her. Frankly it's because she doesn't know, and this includes when her kids find out the truth and when (minor spoiler) due to no major fallout her original relationship with the professor doesnt work out.
It's all naturally acted and presented, but Sayles knows that if he can keep his audience interested past it being an "issue" movie, that it's simply about this human being coming to terms and figuring out her life in difficult, adult ways, that's all he's got to do.
If anything it has more of the flow of a novel - if I were told it was a book beforehand of understand - as everything feels and looks and the actors all have this closely done observation of how grown ups do and respond and process information. That the new love/professor is a psychology professor helps, but it's not used as a gimmick or something like that. A major leg up is that Linda Griffiths, an actor I wasnt aware of at all before this, does so much at times with only a little on the page (or maybe it is there and she gets it every step). She could play certain scenes in a more melodramatic way (once or twice she goes for it, when the script really calls for it), but a lot of the time it's intense in another way, like things could escalate but she is keeping it softer, more closely felt. If it has been made a few years earlier I coild have seen Diane Keaton or someone like that. Thankfully, shes a revelation here, as is the movie in general.
Oh, and Sayles is a really good actor!