Oleanna

“I don't want revenge. I want understanding,” a college student tells a professor after reporting him to a tenure committee for sexual harassment. And it sounds like such a simple desire. But by the time we hear it late in David Mamet's new film, based on his controversial play, we've come to see how tragically difficult true understanding is to come by. It requires that you express yourself clearly and that the person to whom you're speaking listen, really listen, to you; that each side respect the other and engage in a give-and-take of communication until both agree that understanding has been reached. In Oleanna, Mamet presents two people who don't listen to each other and allow painful miscommunications to escalate into a bitter battle for power. He sets it simply: one room, two characters, three scenes. But on this basic frame, he lays so many forces in natural opposition -- male and female; student and teacher; youth and age; old order and new order; security and freedom -- that every argument, whether it's over a job, a grade, a real estate transaction, an insensitive comment, overlaps with some other, and they all reverberate with questions of power in our society, how it is held and how it is abused. Mamet's layering of issues -- academic freedom, violence to women, political correctness, materialism, elitism -- is masterful, as is his use of broken dialogue -- the sentences stretch out here like a row of jagged stones. Despite some reports, Mamet doesn't favor one side heavily over another. He carefully balances the debate and portions sympathy and arrogance to both characters. Macy, a longtime collaborator of Mamet's who's almost graceful in his delivery of the writer's fractured dialogue, makes his John a strutting pedant but also projects a wrenching pain as he sees his life crumble around him. Eisenstadt, though sometimes strident and flat, conveys vulnerability and a convincing passion for her cause. You may find your sympathies drawn more to one of them than another based on your gender, age, or economic status, but it's the rare viewer who will be able to root for one to the total exclusion of the other. Ultimately, both abuse their position. Both fail to listen. In not wanting to give up anything, both close their ears to the other. Mamet's play is so instructive in the ways we fail to communicate openly that I feel awkward trying to make his case for him here. But I know I must try. And I have to hope you're listening.