What is this movie about? It's mostly a sentimental flashback to a time when the protagonist was a teenager and let his crippled girlfriend drown. That's not enough though: we see him upset at the death of his mom; we see how cold and distant his dad is; we see him pull a calf out of the mom with a rope.
We mostly see the adult thinking back to his adolescence and the relationship he had with a girl in braces. He thinks much about this. To help him think, windshield wipers sweep slowly across a wet windshield giving partial but revealing glimpses of something; he stares at the moon in the water; he stares at the moon itself; he picks up leaves and dust and, yes, stares at them.
Then he flashes back to his boyhood where his teenage self thinks while he stares at the moon up and down in the water; and has heavy new-agey conversations with his girlfriend; and then thinks some more.
At one point I thought I some kind of Disney-produced Hardy boys movie that happened to be made in Australia.
My guess is that the producer(s)/director saw some European movies and thought it would be cool to use the same kind of pacing. Problem is, you need a story, a focal point, some good dialogue, and some cleverness to pull off this kind of thing. This movie has none of that.
To experiment, I rewound and then FF'd at 2x and 3x speed. It was amazing: the movie is just as vacuous and boring at high speed.
There are numerous swimming, wading and floating scenes. I thought "Great, this is Australia. A 20' croc is going to come up and snag the girl. Maybe it will thrash and roll around a lot before being shot by the local hunter. Maybe we'll see a snapping turtle tearing flesh off the girls head." No such luck though.
Pearce seems to be a nothing actor. HB Carter is as always: strained, wispy, frail, intense, wispy, strained, punctuated, precocious, wispy and frail. Her range is about 1".
The truly amazing thing is that Brannaugh left the brilliant and intelligent Emma Thompson for HB Carter - who doesn't even have big t*ts.
Avod this at any cost unless you want some background noise while you read a magazine.
We mostly see the adult thinking back to his adolescence and the relationship he had with a girl in braces. He thinks much about this. To help him think, windshield wipers sweep slowly across a wet windshield giving partial but revealing glimpses of something; he stares at the moon in the water; he stares at the moon itself; he picks up leaves and dust and, yes, stares at them.
Then he flashes back to his boyhood where his teenage self thinks while he stares at the moon up and down in the water; and has heavy new-agey conversations with his girlfriend; and then thinks some more.
At one point I thought I some kind of Disney-produced Hardy boys movie that happened to be made in Australia.
My guess is that the producer(s)/director saw some European movies and thought it would be cool to use the same kind of pacing. Problem is, you need a story, a focal point, some good dialogue, and some cleverness to pull off this kind of thing. This movie has none of that.
To experiment, I rewound and then FF'd at 2x and 3x speed. It was amazing: the movie is just as vacuous and boring at high speed.
There are numerous swimming, wading and floating scenes. I thought "Great, this is Australia. A 20' croc is going to come up and snag the girl. Maybe it will thrash and roll around a lot before being shot by the local hunter. Maybe we'll see a snapping turtle tearing flesh off the girls head." No such luck though.
Pearce seems to be a nothing actor. HB Carter is as always: strained, wispy, frail, intense, wispy, strained, punctuated, precocious, wispy and frail. Her range is about 1".
The truly amazing thing is that Brannaugh left the brilliant and intelligent Emma Thompson for HB Carter - who doesn't even have big t*ts.
Avod this at any cost unless you want some background noise while you read a magazine.