Cecil says: Great opening shot, looking down on a coach heading straight up a dry road alongside the striated lines of dry fields. You can tell a film’s going to be good when it catches the attention so immediately. And don’t miss Kate Winslet’s fantastic opening line about a minute in…
I loved this film, which we saw in the wonderful old
Roseville Cinema on Sydney’s North Shore. I want to see it again, it was that
good and had so many layers to it. One person we went with thought it reminded
her of Unforgiven, but for me it was
more Strictly Ballroom, with its
period piece setting and its tragi-comic story.
The audience was 95% women, which rather surprised me. Sure
the costumes were mostly aimed at making the women in small country town
Australia look glamorous, and dress-making was a major theme of the film, but
there was so much more to it than that.
I loved some of the icons of 1950s Australia. The Golden
Fleece petrol sign was still a feature on Australian roads when I was a little
kid here in 1967 so that was a nice memory jolt for me (when did Golden Fleece
disappear?); the ‘elixirs’ people used to consume were still around too when I
was small, though they were on their last legs in the way Almanacs and hand
wringers were.
Kate Winslet is brilliant in the main role. The ever-present
Hugo Weaving looked to be enjoying himself as the cross-dressing copper, though
maybe taken a little bit OTT by Jocelyn Moorhouse, who wrote the screenplay and
directed.
Sarah Snook was wonderfully disguised as Gertrude Pratt at
first and it took me a few scenes to realise she was the same actress as the
one playing Anna in the excellent ABC drama on TV at the moment The Beautiful Lie.
Schools are probably just as cruel places today to be
different from the crowd as they were back then, and the film does a good job
with black & white to take us back to Tilly’s school days 25 years earlier.
But the film shows how school playground cruelty extends out into the community
too, so the people of Dungatar are an evil bunch, upon whom Tilly slowly takes
out her revenge.
****.5
Bea says:
I went in expecting a gentle period drama, and was very surprised to find myself watching a quirky, rather dark, fairytale-style story of revenge, sorrow, laughs, and laying the past to rest.
Kate Winslett as Tilly (with an excellent Australian accent) returns to the home town in the country she left years before under a cloud, moving back in with her elderly, feisty mother (fantastic to see Judy Davis in fine form again), who at first appears to be demented but as the film develops shows herself to be in full possession of her faculties.
As the story unravels in layers we meet the characters of the town, and find out what really happened to send Tilly away all those years ago. A romance is kindled, but ends tragically, and Tilly's return acts as something of a catalyst in the lives of many of the women and men of the town with all sorts of unexpected consequences. Once all the ghosts are laid to rest, Tilly leaves again in spectacular fashion.
This is a great Australian film in the tradition of Baz Luhrmann and all those quirky, slightly dark tales (like Cecil I was reminded of Strictly Ballroom and Muriel's Wedding) - and like Luhrmann and those films, it won't be for everyone (there were definitely mixed views in our group!. It was perhaps in danger of being too lurid at times, and the town definitely looked like a set to me, which rather detracted from entering into the suspension of belief. Still if you like dark and interesting, it's a great watch.
***1/2
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