Writer/Director: Christina Andreef
Producer: Helen Bowden
Executive Producer: Jane Campion
Director of Photography: Laszlo Baranyai
Patsy - Jeanie Drynan ("Muriel's Wedding", "Paperback Hero")
Josie - Genevieve Lemon ("Sweetie", "The Piano")
Nadia - Sacha Horler ("Praise")
Vic - Linal Haft
Vera - Alicia Talbot
Bo - Russell Dykstra |
Christina Andreef's debut film "Soft Fruit" is both delightful and confronting.
The film takes us into the lives of a family coming to terms with the death of their loving mother Patsy.
Jeanie Dynan gives a brilliant performance as Patsy, who wants nothing more than peace and to have her family with her in her last days.
So her children arrive home, big sister Josie (Genevieve Lemon) from the United States, Nadia (Sacha Horler) from Sydney, youngest sister Vera (Alicia Talbot) from a few blocks away, and big bad brother Bo, manages to make it home on parole.
The three larger-than-life sisters were great together, as they fought and went on crash diets and individually as they tried to give something special to their mother before she left them.
Russell Dykstra is outstanding as Bo, who occupies a special place in his mother's farewell. He reads to her from Jackie Kennedy's biography, and takes her on flights of fantasy, where they both overindulge in her liquid morphine supply.
While the sisters scramble for the best room in the house, brother Bo is immediately banished to the garden shed, because his father Vic (Linal Haft) won't have him in the house.
Set in steel town Port Kembla, on the south coast of NSW, the film effectively contrasts the fragility of humanity with the brutality of industry. Father Vic, tells his daughters that the poisonous sulfuric acid from the steel plant is killing his precious plants - not to mention his wife. "It's killing everything", he says.
We are let into the individual and collective grief of the family members and how each one deals with the impending loss of Patsy.
Patsy has to keep reminding, particularly her daughters and husband, that this is her party and they shouldn't be trying to dictate the terms of her death.
Andreef, in her writing and directing, managed to avoid too much sentimentality in the film - but I was moved by the very real way it dealt with the complexities of the human condition in confronting death and loss.
Andreef also managed to deliver a resolution that worked well - a considerable achievement for a first effort.
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