I don't care how much bad-mouthing this movie gets, if you watch it expecting it to be something it's not then sure, you'll be disappointed. It's not a character drama or anything vaguely mainstream, it's purely an intellectual argument in the form of a movie. Sure, that's not good enough for most people, and fair enough. But if you open your ears when you watch the movie (and maybe your mind as well) then you might get something out of it. It's all about what we accept as normal behavior that we shouldn't, what we accept as the rules of social engagement when we need not, about what we deem as normal without thinking. The rules of present society shouldn't be engraved in stone for eternity just because that's how we've behaved up untill now. We should learn to think for ourselves and not just do as society tells us (and in the case of Oleanna it's Patriarchal society). Prejudice has no reason to exist if we learn to think for ourselves and question the rules of conduct. Heterosexual men are the prime offenders in this scenario. The William H Macy character blithely walks through the film without ever realizing his own prejudice, he's just doing what's normal to him, without ever thinking about it. By the end of the film his pathetic ambivalence is revealed for it is : gross chauvinism in extreme. If you haven't seen the movie, it's definitely worth the effort. If you've seen it and didn't like... i wonder, is it mostly heterosexual men that have a problem with this movie ?
Review of Oleanna
