Product Details

• Actors: Caroline Goodall, Caroline Gillmer, Tara Morice, Joan Plowright, Ray Barrett
• Format: PAL
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004CTKR
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #533,087 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars it may be a nice place to visit ..., January 20, 2001

By 

Peter Shelley "petershelley" (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sorrento Beach [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The play Hotel Sorrento by Australian writer Hannie Rayson was successful enough to ensure interest in a film adaptation, however the film gives you no clue as to why the play was so popular. Set in a Victorian seaside town, it centres on the return of one of three sisters (Chekhov anybody?) who has published a thinly disguised autobiography, Melancholy. The title is enough to warn you that she isn't going to be much fun, and that her reasons for returning aren't sentimental. The title also makes you never want to read the book. Director Richard Franklin's translation is rudimentary - people talk incessantly in that over-analytical way that the theatre loves so, actions occur offscreen, and even the house's front door squeaks histrionically. He overcompensates by having the radio blaring during conversations (or confrontations as they are known on stage), and in the worst scene, drums are pounded! Is he daring us to stay, or just a mad Beatnick? The film manages to come to life in a full-cast lunch mostly because of John Hargreaves' performance as a local journo, and Joan Plowright as a pixie neighbour. (Plowright's appearance is the international market concession, and perhaps it was thought her marriage to Olivier adds some pedigree). As the writer, Caroline Goodall has a bad case of the Streeps. She is so busy you want to hit her. Caroline Gilmer comes off better as a shop owner, the hometown voice of reason, though make-up has turned her into Roseanne post-surgery. Best of the three sisters is Tara Morice, probably since she has the least to say - she's practically furniture - but still does some clever things. Franklin films pelicans in the bay and succeeds with a silent shot of Gilmer holding her son, during a beach tragedy, but his last image is so derivative of Bergman and so obvious in the set-up, that the audience laughs in recognition.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three sisters confront their past, March 9, 2000

By 

Drew (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sorrento Beach [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This film was known as "Hotel Sorrento" in its original Australian release, and as "Sorrento Beach" in the US. The depiction of the difficult relationship between the three sisters in this film is wonderful. Joan Plowright's performance is excellent.