Customer Reviews

Hotel Sorrento [VHS]

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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.

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.