Last Chance for Lost Lives

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

There is old-maidishness and there is the new celibacy. And everyone knows the cure for both of these unfortunate conditions: a man. Any man. The good news about these two small movies -- The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and High Tide -- is that they permit their heroines ambiguous triumphs over this conventional wisdom. The bad news is that neither movie dares triumph over the conventionally compassionate view of the women. Or, for that matter, over the limits of conventionally mannered filmmaking.

Judith Hearne took up permanent residence in the literary world's case load in 1955 when Novelist Brian Moore anatomized her "lonely passion." In Peter Nelson's screenplay, however, she is more a curio than a figure of powerful emotional relevance. This classic spinster (to whose portrayal Maggie Smith brings all the right moves but nothing very individual) is a Dublin piano teacher. Naturally she drinks a bit. Sometimes she drinks a lot. Her timorous gentility suggests to her landlady's brother (Bob Hoskins, with some of his spark plugs missing) the possibilities of untapped wealth -- enough of it, anyway, to finance a restaurant he wants to start. To Judith, his mercenary advances read as a last chance for romance.

After a purging crack-up, Judith is able to throw away all her crutches -- booze, religion, romantic fantasies -- and totter off into Celtic twilight under her own renewed power. Director Jack Clayton (Room at the Top, The Great Gatsby) seems to think these mingy cliches speak volumes. With his smugly self-effacing camera style, he could use, as the Irish say, a "wee jar" to warm him up. His movie needs a big jar to warm up the viewer.

High Tide's Lilli (seething enigmatically under the tight rein of Judy Davis' performance) is quite like Judith Hearne. Rootlessly she ranges the Australian provinces as another sort of fringe musician, backup singer for an Elvis imitator. She too drinks, and though she will indulge in desultory sex, it is not a high priority with her. Most important, she too is presented with a last chance to turn her life around -- to reveal her identity and reclaim her long-abandoned daughter Ally (the soberly lovely Claudia Karvan).

Unlike Judith Hearne, High Tide is not whiny and overexplained. And under the direction of Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career, Mrs. Soffel), the lead actresses have an honest naturalism that almost makes us forget the coincidences and arthritic manipulations of Laura Jones' script. But instead of calming our suspicions, Armstrong's camera work -- all zip pans, fast tracking and erratic boom shots -- reinforces them. Maybe she should take phlegmatic lessons from Jack Clayton.