STARS: GUY PEARCE, HELENA BONHAM CARTER, LYNDLEY JOYNER, BROOKE HARMAN and FRANK GALLACHER

DIRECTED (AND WRITTEN BY): Michael Petroni

Story

Son of the local doctor, teenager Sam Franks (Joyner), returns from boarding school to his home in a small Victorian country town for the summer holidays. He soon catches up with his girl friend Sylvy (Harman) with whom he obviously enjoys a deep but platonic relationship. They spend lazy time together at the local swimming hole and in the surrounding area. Their conversation indicates an unusually intellectual depth with a commonalty in their ponderings on life and the wonders of the universe. Sam is obviously liked and respected by Sylvy’s parents and as her father (Gallacher) shares his wisdom with Sam we sense a bond between the youngster and the older man - a battling small farmer. Sylvy’s father shows an interest in Sam that is totally lacking from Sam’s distant and self absorbed (widower) father.

There is a terrible mishap at the waterhole and the story soon leaps ahead by decades. Returning home to arrange the burial of his father, Sam (Pearce) now a psychiatrist, and lecturer, meets a mysterious and emotionally troubled woman, Ruby, played by Bonham Carter, whom he later rescues from the river. A deep emotional, intellectual (and this time physical) relationship soon blossoms between them that is strikingly reminiscent of his teenage friendship with Sylvy. Sam uses his psychiatric skills to try and unravel Ruby’s (and his own) troubled state but with only limited success. The story plays out to a somewhat predictable ending, but I do not say this in any derogatory sense.

Extras

The full length commentary by Michael Petroni, Roger Lanser (Director of Photography) and Bill Murphy (Editor) is very interesting, and well worth watching, giving detailed insights into the shooting of the film but it is mostly technical. Unfortunately, for me, it fails to get into the spirit or message of the film, which I always use a bench mark for how well the film achieves its aims and as a cross CHECK on my interpretation. There is the usual trailer, cast and crew biographies and some Madman propaganda.

Overall

This is a beautiful and languid film and a great credit to Michael Petroni! His scripting is tight and there is simply not a superfluous word. His direction is similarly excellent. The title and the core of the intellectual dialogue weaves in lines from TS Elliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and does this superbly. The young players who start off in the film receive no credit on the DVD cover and I feel this is an unfortunate omission as their performances are beautifully controlled and quite stunning. Their relationship was both warm and deep and Petroni avoided the obvious opportunity to introduce the element of sex leaving us with an idealistic and healthy view of youth searching for meaning. The behaviour and performances of the adult pair was certainly more torrid in every sense but kept drifting back to the dreamlike state achieved in the early part of the film. Both Pearce and Bonham Carter played their parts well with each showing the spirituality of their characters. This film had a fine sound track which unobtrusively complements the pace and mood of the film. Surround sound was excellent and when beatles start buzzing around the viewer you are really in the set! I loved the cinematography too. Overall a very pleasant and thought provoking film which I will happily return to.