Dir. Rachel Ward, Australia , 2009, 101 mins
Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Rachel Griffiths, Bryan Brown, Maeve Dermody, Sophie Lowe
Review by Carol Allen
Actress Rachel Ward, best known for the eighties tv series The Thorn Birds , makes an effective feature film directing debut here with her own screenplay based on a seventies American novel by Newton Thornburg, which she has seamlessly transferred to Australia in the present day with frequent flashbacks to the eighties.
Ned (Mendelsohn) returns to the family home in the Australian outback with his much younger girlfriend Toni (Dermody) to say goodbye to his dying father Bruce (Brown), who is being cared for by Ned's younger sister Sally (Griffiths). But as the memories of his teenage years come flooding back, particularly of his twin sister Kate (Lowe), who died in an accident when she was 16, and his elder brother Cliff (Josh McFarlane), we gradually learn about the family's tragic past and most importantly Ned's close relationship with his sister.
We get a good sense of place and texture in the isolated, run down farm, when Ned and Toni first arrive. The film does though take a while to engage us in its story, being initially somewhat reluctant to reveal much in the way of important information. It is quite a long way in for example before it's clearly revealed that the mother died young and Bruce brought the children up as a single parent. The lack of prominence of young Sally and Cliff in the earlier flashbacks, which concentrate almost entirely on Kate and young Ned, is also a touch confusing, making it too long before we get a really clear picture of the structure of the family. Bryan Brown, who as producer of the film worked hard to make sure Ward's film got to the screen, is very good as Bruce. While in many ways a dislikable and grumpy old bully, he also manages to capture our sympathy for the character. Griffiths is a bit wasted as Sally, who doesn't have much to do until the very end of the film but Dermody is likeably lively as Toni. There's a scene between her and Bruce, when she reluctantly helps the older man back into bed and cleans him up after a little “accident”, which is one of the best sequences in the present day part of the film.
Overall though the meat of the story is in the past, in the flashbacks which reveal the true nature of the relationship between Ned and Kate and the tragedy that grows out of it – revelations which are totally gripping. The fact that the past is in the main so much more interesting than the present (apart from the scenes with Bruce) is though a bit of a problem, in that about half way through the film one becomes impatient to get away from the present and find out the rest of the story. Mendelsohn as adult Ned isn't that interesting a man. His younger self, played by Scott O'Donnell, is not only a very good physical match for grown up Ned but is more engaging as a character and the structure of the story doesn't quite work in that the past and the present fail to connect in terms of taking us into older Ned's inner life and effectively disclosing the man who has been formed by his youthful experiences. Newcomer Lowe though is very promising as Kate, a quirky and somewhat manipulative girl, testing out her emerging sexuality on the twin to whom she's so close.
|
