Chamber pieces: Sunday (2014), Disclosure (2020)

Sunday (2014) is an Australia/New Zealand co-production about an ex-couple at a relationship crossroads. After months of separation, Australian Charlie (Dustin Clare) and New Zealander Eve (Camille Keenan) are reunited when Eve tells Charlie she’s pregnant. Over 24 hours in Christchurch, the couple must decide about their and their unborn child’s future. Sunday is gentle, cleanly executed, and at a tight 70 minutes economically told. Director Michelle Joy Lloyd co-wrote the film with her actors, and befitting the story the production feels intimate and propelled by its time and narrative constraints. It also nicely utilises its backdrop of post-earthquake Christchurch, adding thematic heft.

I have a fondness for Australian films that share titles with better-known overseas productions, among them Fair Game, Thirst, and now Disclosure (2020). Clocking in at 80 minutes and with nary a Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, or VR machine in sight, Michael Bentham’s Disclosure is another economical and intimate drama, albeit here focused on two couples and confined to a single location. The story centres on the gladiatorial verbiage exchanged between two affluent married couples (creatives played by Mark Leonard Winter and Matilda Ridgway, politickers played by Tom Wren and Geraldine Hakewill) around an incident involving their children. While based on an original screenplay by Bentham, Disclosure feels like a stage play adapted for film with its single location, small ensemble, and dialogue-driven narrative. In particular, it carries whiffs of Roman Polanski’s film adaptations of Death and the Maiden (with its political dimension) and especially Carnage, similarly a civil dialogue between two married couples regarding their children that progressively degenerates. Disclosure isn’t as meaty or unique as either of those titles, but it's well-executed and acted and evocatively scored to the ambient sounds of the surrounding Australian shrub.

Ben

Malcolm (1986)

When penning my review of Black and White , starring Robert Carlyle, I was reminded of my two theatrical viewings of The Full Monty : one in a packed theatre with patrons lapping up the film, the other a few weeks later in a large theatre with less than a dozen, far more polite punters. As a dumb teen, I took away the wrong lesson: that the film didn’t work/wasn’t successful outside a packed auditorium. As an adult, I have a more rounded appreciation of the film and its grace notes that aren't dependent on an enthused opening weekend crowd — the thoughtful, non-condescending working-class milieu it sketches (much more effective and less caricatured than the likes of Billy Elliot ), the lovely work from Lesley Sharp, and so on—but the two distinct viewings remain an instructive lesson in the role of an audience in galvanizing each other and collectively elevating a film experience [1]. Malcolm (1986) is a film I’ve also watched twice—albeit at home and with a much longer interva...

Six pack: Furiosa (2024), Force of Nature (2024), No Escape (1994), The New Boy (2023), Mary and Max (2009), and Sweet As (2022)

There used to be a nerdy adage—at least until contrary instalments countered the point—that even-numbered Star Trek films were better than their odd-numbered counterparts. I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar adage emerges about the Mad Max films: while the obviously odd-numbered original was a trailblazer, it’s The Road Warrior and Fury Road that have commanded universal acclaim, while Beyond Thunderdome and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) have proven divisive. There are striking moments—as expected in both a George Miller film and a Mad Max film—in Furiosa , and Miller remains the most idiosyncratic generator of sequels: Furiosa (technically a prequel) is his sixth, after a Babe sequel, a Happy Feet sequel, and three other Mad Max sequels, with none of these offshoots feeling the same. However, if you’d told me Furiosa was based on a five-part prequel comic book series, I’d believe you, based on its chapter structure and the narrative dead end it arrives at. As it stand...

John Hargreaves double feature: Hoodwink (1981) and Sky Pirates (1986)

Published 2017 on Down Under Flix Discounting the film Blackfellas , in which he plays a minor role as a racist policeman, I’m surprised it’s taken this long to cover any John Hargreaves films on Down Under Flix. A six time AFI Award nominee (including for Hoodwink ) and triple winner, Hargreaves is one of the best leading men to emerge from the Australian New Wave, and I have particular regard for his work in Don’s Party, Long Weekend , and The Odd Angry Shot . Hargreaves was a natural performer: gifted and charismatic, but not unnecessarily flashy; handsome, but not movie star handsome, and slightly crumpled like a creased jacket. He was a quintessential Australian everyman ala Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown, though he’s less familiar to young filmgoers today, partly due to his untimely passing in 1996 at age 50. This article looks at one of Hargreaves’ best films… and one of his other films…

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