NZFF – Wish You Were Here

Two young Australian couples take off to the southern beaches of Cambodia for a week free of the incumbrances of real life, and the usual line-up of sea, sand and partying that said freedom permits.  The extended opening credits of the film economically show the four having a whale of a time; shopping in markets, tasting curious delicacies, laughing, sun-bronzed and happy.  Then, as the film starts for real, the tone changes abruptly – because only three of them come home.

Alice and Dave thought they were having one last hurrah before the arrival of their third child; Alice’s sister Steph had encouraged them to travel with her and new boyfriend Jeremy (Antony Starr), a businessman of dubious enterprise who then disappears after a boozy night out.  Reluctant to involve the police, unable to open up to friends, life gets claustrophobic and paranoid.  Secrets and lies unfold that threaten to destroy their happy family, as the audience is drip fed answers until all must be revealed.

The blend of heartfelt emotional drama with subtle performances is reminiscent of the excellent Lantana, another Australian missing persons drama.  Co-writer Felicity Price is compelling as Alice, caught between her husband, her sister and maternal obligation, opposite a tortured Joel Edgerton (one of the all-round superlative cast of Animal Kingdom).  Sydney serves as a benevolent backdrop to the tension that ratchets up with every scene.  This is a beautifully-shot, perfectly-pitched first feature from Kieran Darcy-Smith, and one looks forward to his next creation.

Here comes the rain again

After the Waterfall

It was never going to be a laugh a minute.  Cute-as-a-button four-year old Pearl goes missing while out in the bush with her dad, his wife leaves him, and the man’s world falls apart.  Even the luscious West Auckland scenery can’t brighten what is inevitably a sombre but subtly told account of grief and self-destruction.

The film opens at a happy family celebration where John (TV’s “Outrageous Fortune”‘s Antony Starr in dramatic mode, and doing a very fine job of it, too) mans the barbeque, in love with wife Ana, daughter Pearl, and on seemingly good terms with his parents.  Right from the opening frames the scene-setting is perfect: seen through the lens of somewhat grainy home-video style photography, we eavesdrop on snatches of conversation that soon show that the idyllic Piha life is not all it seems.  Subtle is the key word here, however – and we’re given plenty of time (without it being laid on too thick) to appreciate John’s world before everything changes.

Losing a child must surely be one of the most devastating experiences any human can go through, and it’s an understandable tragedy that so few marriages survive the heartbreak and recriminations that often follow.  Within weeks of “losing” Pearl, John winds up in hospital while his grieving wife takes up with his best mate.  A few years later he’s living with his negative and taciturn widowed father, and basically letting himself go to seed.  Now working as a taxi driver, his wedding ring resolutely on his left hand despite his estrangement from Ana, John’s day-to-day life is miserable.

The film touches on the notion that Pearl’s disappearance is a mystery, allowing the parents (and us) to countenance her potential return.  But the story is mostly about John’s downward spiral, and his response to the various happenings in his life many years after the fact.  It’s well-acted, realistic and gently meaningful without any of the emotive music or blistering show-downs that manipulate many a bigger film’s audience.  Writer/director Simone Horrocks has done an admirable job in her first feature. 

That said, After the Waterfall perpetuates the body of New Zealand films so briefly interrupted by the relative frivolity of the largely unpopular Predicament, by tackling a tragic topic and staging it and its aftermath in our pretty countryside.  Though the film inevitably ends on an optimistic note, it drags us through some pretty dark places without giving us much we didn’t see in the likes of Rain and In My Father’s Den.  It’s a worthy addition to this oeuvre, but it sure would be nice if we could produce something simply entertaining.  The Hobbit, anyone?