Olivia
(1981)
review by Head Cheeze

I've never been a big fan of Uli Lommel. I have seen three of what his fans call his best films, and wasn't impressed with any of them (especially the dreadful The Boogeyman). However, I was actually pleasantly surprised, though not exactly floored, by Olivia, the latest Lommel flick to hit DVD courtesy of Image Entertainment.

Olivia (Love) is a gorgeous young Londoner whose traumatized by the violent death of her mother, a prostitute who worked the London Bridge district. Unhappily married to an abusive man, Olivia's life is slowly unraveling as the spectre of her mother forces her to take to the streets disguised as prostitute, and murder her customers. Olivia meets Mike (Walker), an American hired to supervise the dismantling of the London Bridge for transport and reconstruction in Arizona, and, against her "mother's" will, falls in love. This, of course, doesn't sit well with Olivia's crazed husband, who tracks the pair down on the bridge and tries to throw Mike over, but ends up in the drink himself. Olivia runs away, leaving Mike, and her life, behind.

Flash forward four years- the London Bridge is now in Arizona, and Mike is there to supervise it's grand opening, when he happens upon a woman who bears a striking resemblence to OIivia. The young woman acts as if she's never seen him before, but as Mike get's closer he becomes increasingly certain that it is his lost love. Has she followed Mike to America, or is she, instead, running from something else?

Olivia was originally intended to be The Boogeyman 2, but Lommel was so inspired by the story of the journey of the London Bridge that he scrapped plans for that film and instead wrote the script for Olivia, using the cast and crew he'd assembled for the aformentioned sequel. While Lommel is clearly channeling Hitchcock here, the results are more erotic art-house than Rebecca, but there are a few moments in which the influence is glaringly obvious. The spartan script, which Lommel wrote on set in three weeks, is rather lightweight stuff, never really exploring more than the elements needed to forward the plot, and this is perhaps the film's biggest detriment. The cast is servicable, with Love turning in the best performance as the shattered soul Olivia. She's also quite a pleasure to look at, and it doesn't hurt that she spends a fair amount of time in the film in various states of undress.

The DVD from Image presents the film in a widescreen anamorphic transfer that's pretty clean, but does suffer from a variety of artifacts and a bass-heavy soundtrack that sounds muffled on occasion. The sole extra is a twenty minute interview with Lommel that's actually pretty entertaining and the director does fill in some of the gaps that his screenplay couldn't.

Overall, Olivia is an interesting little film that surpassed my expectations (which were pretty low, so take that for what it's worth). While it's not really thrilling, scary, or all that well-crafted, it does have a quirky charm about it and fans of Lommel will most certainly eat this one up.