Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Biiter-sweet romancing with an air of doom, December 12, 1998
By A Customer
This is classic Gillian Armstrong giving us a snapshot of inner-urban life in a Sydney home one long humid summer. JP (played brilliantly by Bruno Ganz who was so memorable in Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire") is a Frenchman far from home. With his marriage to Beth (a woman whose vitality seems to have been snuffed out by marriage) already under stress, it takes only the arrival of Beth's wild and vibrant sister Vicki to send everything spinning out of control. Vicki is Beth mirror image - but she is a reflection of what Beth once was. Beth longs to be wild and alive once more but that can never be. JP sees in Vicki what attracted him to Beth - and alone and longing for something that he can't find Down Under, JP drifts apart from Beth as she does from him. But Beth has another problem - unresolved issues with her father (played by Bill Hunter who seems to be everywhere in Australian movies). Her father has all the personality of a prune, and won't admit his oldest child is now a grown woman with a mind of her own. Beth, played in a deeply stressed manner by beautiful NZ actress Lisa Harrow, finds is being tossed about from the roles of mother, daughter and wife all at once - and she's the one that is left to suffer. Truly a brilliant film, with a young Miranda Otto in the role of Beth's all-observing but resilient daughter, this is a touching film that captures much of the tension of our lives that will often cannot identify.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bitter-sweet romancing with an air of doom, September 19, 2006
This is classic Gillian Armstrong giving us a snapshot of inner-urban life in a Sydney home one long humid summer.
JP (played brilliantly by Bruno Ganz who was so memorable in Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire") is a Frenchman far from home. With his marriage to Beth (a woman whose vitality seems to have been snuffed out by marriage) already under stress, it takes only the arrival of Beth's wild and vibrant sister Vicki to send everything spinning out of control.
Vicki is Beth mirror image - but she is a reflection of what Beth once was. Beth longs to be wild and alive once more but that can never be. JP sees in Vicki what attracted him to Beth - and alone and longing for something that he can't find Down Under, JP drifts apart from Beth as she does from him.
But Beth has another problem - unresolved issues with her father (played by Bill Hunter who seems to be everywhere in Australian movies). Her father has all the personality of a prune, and won't admit his oldest child is now a grown woman with a mind of her own.
Beth, played in a deeply stressed manner by beautiful NZ actress Lisa Harrow, finds is being tossed about from the roles of mother, daughter and wife all at once - and she's the one that is left to suffer.
Truly a brilliant film, with a young Miranda Otto in the role of Beth's all-observing but resilient daughter, this is a touching film that captures much of the tension of our lives that will often cannot identify.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Very well acted portrait of an eccentric family, April 14, 2011
Full of wonderfully acted, beautifully observed moments in the life of an
unconventional family, this was called, by one critic, `an Australian `Hannah
and her Sisters'. And to an extent that's not a bad description.
But this film is messier, less complete in it's vision and less bold in its
style. None-the-less, it's still entertaining, moving, and very worth seeing.
Bruno Ganz's half French, half German accent is a bit distracting (he's terrific otherwise),
and, for me, the ending felt rushed, as if things had to get to a conclusion.
It's a film I'd actually wished had gone on longer, or had been willing to leave things less
resolved. Once you start with the messiness of life, you lose something with a last
minute switch to the neatness of movies.
Yet another of the ever growing list of good films that are inexplicably unavailable
on region 1 DVD.
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