Saturday, March 13, 2010

Moofies - Blessed


EXPECTATIONS: This is the latest film from director Ana Kokkinos, so this will more than likely have some really intense nasty sexual business and be really depressing and hard to watch. It's co-written by Andrew Bovell, who gave us the pretty much perfect film Lantana. Is this going to be a winning combination? I'm a little wary, but I'm hoping this is amazing stuff.

REALITY: This is a flawed film. There are some incredible performances here, it's great to see Frances O'Connor on the cinema screen again, but there is also some odd casting going on. A young teenage girl who is integral to the beginning of the film comes off as a 21 year old woman trying so hard to act like she is 15. It took me out of the reality of the film quite a bit. It's also a jumpy film, where all the pieces of the story and the characters are tenuously connected. It worked extremely well for Lantana, but for some reason the disconnected nature of the story just made the nuts and bolts of the film making all too visible. Really odd storylines involving pedophilia were all too clear to see. The audience were given 'clues' as to where the story was going to go, but the clues may as well have been giant flashing neon signs.

I'm probably being a little harsh. It's still a great film with fantastic performances that deals with some hard to tackle issues of love and belonging. It's just a shame that this could have been a perfect film, but it didn't quite make it for me.

***1/2
jej

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