There is something quite deliciously old-fashioned about veteran Australian director Fred Schepisi’s latest movie that gives you the distinct feeling that it actually may have been made 20 years ago. It’s all about a domineering matriarch who has been a total control freak all her life : staff, children and local society, and now she is trying to manipulate one last thing: her death. Her two adult children have reluctantly come back to their native Australia to say their goodbyes carrying a lot of baggage between them (the mental kind that is).
As Elizabeth lays dramatically in her bed drifting in and our of lucidity and waited on hand and foot, she is still alert enough to realise that despite their outward appearances her children both have very unhappy lives. Both of them are also broke and a little to eager to get their hands on her considerable fortune. Dorothy is now a French Princess living in Paris, even though the Prince is long gone and taken his money with him. Basil is a very famous hammy actor living in London and though he was knighted for his talent he is still unable to get any roles.
As they wait around the house for ‘the end’ it becomes apparent that part of the offsprings unhappiness is the resentment they have, especially Dorothy, of the fact that their mother had a real zest for enjoying life to the full, and usually in the company of very attractive men. Even now as she lays dying she seems so much happier than they. In public they are all good at putting a brave face on it …. and in Elizabeth’s case it is heavily applied by the nurse … but once alone, they are all in danger of just falling apart.
It is not just the fact that it is all set in the 1970’s that makes the whole tone of the movie seem like something from another era, but it’s the type of story that would have been made in the heyday of Hollywood. However instead of Bette Davis as Elizabeth as it may have been, she is in fact played so wonderfully by the superb Charlotte Rampling. Her children are played by Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis and it is the combination of such three great acting talents that makes the whole piece soar and so extremely enjoyable. The fact that Ms Rampling off the screen is just a few years older than both ‘her children’, is really quite funny.
The outcome of the story is made clear at the beginning, but the journey getting there is a surprise. And a very entertaining one too.
P.S. This had the briefest of theatrical releases in the US in September and is now available in DVD in most countries now
★★★★★★★★
Labels: Australian, drama, period drama
