Lianna (1983)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

John Sayles

Writer:

John Sayles (written by)

Release Date:

18 January 1983 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A happily married woman comes to realize herself of being a repressed lesbian after she has an affair with a female college professor, and then tries to come to terms with her newfound lifestyle.

Plot Keywords:

Lesbian | Lesbianism | Gay Parent | Lesbian Scene | Female Nudity

Cast

Linda Griffiths	...	Lianna
Jane Hallaren	...	Ruth
Jon DeVries	...	Dick
Jo Henderson	...	Sandy
Jessica MacDonald	...	Theda (as Jessica Wight MacDonald)
Jesse Solomon	...	Spencer
John Sayles	...	Jerry
Stephen Mendillo	...	Bob
Betsy Julia Robinson	...	Cindy
Nancy Mette	...	Kim
Maggie Renzi	...	Sheila
Madelyn Coleman	...	Mrs. Hennessy
Robyn Reeves	...	Job Applicant
Chris Elliott	...	Lighting Assistant
Marta Renzi	...	Dancer
D. David Porter	...	Dancer
Rochelle Oliver	...	Betty
Nancy Elizabeth Kammer	...	Liz
Jean Passanante	...	Rose
Maggie Task	...	Evelyn
Marisa Smith	...	Dick's Student
Amanda Carlin	...	Dick's Student
Madeline Lee	...	Supermarket Customer
Deborah Taylor	...	Receptionist
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jeffrey Nelson	...	The Man (uncredited)

Directed by
John Sayles

Writing credits
John Sayles		(written by)

Produced by
Jeffrey Nelson	....	producer
Maggie Renzi	....	producer

Original Music by
Mason Daring

Cinematography by
Austin De Besche

Film Editing by
John Sayles

Production Design by
Jeanne McDonnell

Costume Design by
Louise Martinez

Sound Department
Thomas Brandau	....	sound mixer

Camera and Electrical Department
David Arndt	....	gaffer
Jeff Levy	....	electrician

Editorial Department
Prudence Arndt	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Adam Brooks	....	script supervisor
Suzanne Ceresko	....	project manager (2003 restoration)
Marta Renzi	....	choreographer

Production Companies

• Winwood Productions

Distributors

• MGM Home Entertainment (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• TV3 (1990) (Finland) (TV)
• United Artists Classics

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 (DVD rating) | UK:18 (original rating) | Australia:M | Sweden:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Fort Lee, New Jersey, USA

Company:

Winwood Productions

Trivia:

The money for the film was raised by Maggie Renzi and Jeffrey Nelson. The film's investors included about 30 "nontraditional" investors, people who had never put money into a film before.

Quotes:

[Upon finding her thirteen-year-old son's porno stash, right after finding that he was awake all night]
Lianna: My God, he's had an orgy.

Movie Connections:

References The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Soundtrack:

The Waitress

"I Think You've Got A Crush On Her"

A woman develops romantic feelings for her (female) child psychology professor. A love affair ensues, and Lianna's life is transformed.

John Sayles' film is an attractive, well-made piece, perceptively analysing character and relationships in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small-town college campus. The location looks like upstate New York (Sayles is a native of Schenectady).

Lianna Massey is in her 30's and she has allowed life to happen to her. As a college student she drifted into a relationship with her teacher, Dick. Now she is married to him and they have two children. We see her doing the dull rounds, picking up the kids and waiting at the back of Dick's class to give him a ride home. Alone after the students leave, Lianna and Dick do not embrace. This is a loveless marriage. When Dick complains about Lianna entering his class, she hits back with, "Afraid you'll let them see you playing husband?" We now have Dick's measure. He is a philanderer who preys on undergraduates for sex.

Dick has exploited Lianna's passivity, shaping the marriage to his own advantage. Even the children are named after his favourite movie stars (Dick lectures in Film Studies). He attends campus parties alone, reasoning that he has to be seen at these functions if he is to get tenure. In fact, he is busy chasing student skirt. When Lianna shows up at one party unannounced and sees him romping in the sand box, her last bond of loyalty towards him is severed.

Ruth Brennan is an impressive woman. In her late 40's and a professor of Child Psychology, she is bright, good-looking and stylish, with plenty of wisdom and poise. She teaches an evening class for campus moms, and this is where Lianna meets her. Drawn to the urbane, understanding Ruth, Lianna makes clumsy attempts to ingratiate herself, offering to work as a research assistant and compiling lists of children's literature. While Dick is out of town attending the Toronto Film Festival, Lianna takes the opportunity to have dinner at Ruth's place.

Ruth is an experienced lesbian, but Lianna is not yet even aware that this is where the friendship is heading. As she prepares for the dinner date, we see Lianna decide, on a whim, to go bra-less. Her feelings are as yet inchoate, but we know that the relationship is about to become sexual.

The two women become lovers, but things do not work out as cosily as the naive Lianna had expected. She burns her boats with Dick, who shows that his hard intellect is coupled with a phenomenal mean streak. Lianna's friend Sandy, uncomprehendingly conventional in her outlook, rejects her. Even more ominously, Ruth proves to be an aloof, calculating lover. Lianna is dismayed to find that she can't move in with Ruth, because it would cause a scandal "here in faculty land". Suddenly Lianna is confronted with the stark reality of her new situation: her children stay with Dick while she has to find herself a job and a place to live. Ruth ends the research assistant arrangement, saying that it is inappropriate for a bed partner to be an employee. She asks Lianna not to call her by her first name in class. Worse still, Lianna learns of "the woman back home", Ruth's long-standing lover, who is still very much on the scene.

As the affair with Ruth fades and withers, Lianna has to feel her way painfully towards a new life for herself. We see her alone in her empty apartment, the plaintive whistle of the kettle representing the dull ache of her unhappiness. She has to cope with a dead-end job and brainless colleagues, having forsaken the easy life of a faculty mom and the sparkling wit of campus society. Her TV set becomes her life, the lame soap opera dialogue echoing her words to Ruth. The girl in the launderette is reading "The Well Of Loneliness". Lianna's meetings with her children are agonising for all concerned. Jerry the campus stud (played by Sayles) calls on the company-starved Lianna. She is delighted to see him until she realises that he is a shark, trying to exploit her vulnerability. When he is rebuffed, Jerry (typically) misses the point and rationalises it in self-referential terms: "My technique must be getting ragged."

Early on in the affair, Ruth had taken Lianna to a gay bar. The 'naughtiness' and the excitement of it had been a liberating experience for the Alberta girl. Now, she heads back to the bar merely to slough off her loneliness. When she ends up in bed with Cindy of the Women's Air Corps, Cindy points out that the two of them have little in common. "We have enough," replies Lianna bleakly.

There are plenty of strikingly clever moments in this impressive film. Sayles' crash-edited blackboard trick is memorable. Later, students try to film a drinks party, and Sayles comments ironically on their attempt by shooting the scene with a handheld camera. The dance show which Lianna stage-manages is a neat dramatisation of her predicament, and the beautiful Otis Redding music entirely apposite. The children are shown brilliantly to be 'in the middle' of the marriage breakdown as they sit on the sofa, eyes darting back and forth between mom and dad, like tennis spectators.

The telephone is used cleverly to symbolise communication breakdown. Dick slams the receiver down, signifying the death of the marriage, and Lianna fails to get any answers as she phones out from her beleaguered apartment.