Lianna (1983)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Sayles' second feature as director, and his first great film. It's not perfect, has its share of clichés and is certainly dated, but it's wonderful. Linda Griffiths stars as Lianna, a young mother of two who is constantly suffering under her smarter, controlling husband, a film professor (Jon DeVries). Lianna doesn't have much of a life, but she manages to sneak in a night class twice a week. She develops what seems to be a non-romantic crush on her professor (Jane Hallaren). When her husband cheats on her, the relationship with her professor changes to a sexual one. It would be easy to hold the fact that Sayles is a man against the movie. However, Sayles does here what he does best: create strong, identifiable characters for whom we care. Lianna is really one of the best developed characters I can remember. I absolutely love the way Sayles makes her intellectually inferior to both her husband and lover. It gives her struggle a lot of weight. And I love the line she says to her husband: "Just because you can argue better doesn't mean you are right." She breaks my heart. The power structure between her and her husband is brilliantly written. I also liked that Sayles creates a new power structure, and not one wholly different from the marriage, between Lianna and her lesbian lover. My only complaint is that Sayles does sometimes treat Hallaren's character too kindly. She's clearly taking advantage of Lianna, and at times she's clearly treating her badly. In fact, the relationship starts exactly the same way as the relationship between Lianna and her husband. She was once his student, as well. The parallel isn't underlined as well as it should have been. I think Linda Griffith's performance here is one of the best ever. It's a tragedy that she didn't become famous after this. I know that Sayles isn't the greatest director (specifically referring to the direction) in the world, but this is some of his best work on that front (his very best is certainly Matewan). Of course his greatest talent is his writing; he is such a remarkable writer of human interrelationships. Sayles also gives his best performance as an actor in this film. Lianna is such a subtle work of human emotion. It really doesn't have any big moments, and it doesn't end with any clear resolution. The film's power only hit me about 20 minutes after it was over. It's a small masterpiece.

I think if you are interested in the subject matter, the content of the movie carries it. The comments thus far have been extremely positive, which is not quite in line with the current rating. So my comment would be to warn you that there is a lot of mediocre acting and the photography was not great. I'm sure the budget of the movie had a lot to do with it. And in some way the lack of great lighting, etc., and the "lameness" of the movie tends to work in its favor to present the subject matter as very ordinary, very commonplace, in opposition to how society wants to view this as something very unusual. I'm not a long-winded person. The need to pad this out to meet an IMDB requirement of ten lines would seem to ensure that there will be a lot of filler in these comments.

An insightful portrait done by the master of portraying real characters, John Sayles. This was a sensitive but unsentimental portrayal of a woman coming to terms with being a Lesbian, well before it was every the trend to portray gay and lesbian characters in a sensitive light. I really admie John Sayles' ability to understand characters that seem so far removed from himself.

The previous review did a great job in outlining the movie.One additional comment: This movie joints "Desert Hearts" and "If these walls could talk 2" in the pantheon of movies with the best romantic scenes between women.