It’s been the year of the unfilmable novel we’ve had Life of Pi, Cloud Atlas and now this version of Patrick White’s 1973 tome. The book was huge (600 pages), dense and highly affected, so can old Aussie director Fred Schepisi bring it to life? Well no, in a word. Schepisi was at the vanguard of a new Australian Cinema decades ago, but that new wave never quite gained momentum and has left Schepisi adapting 1970s novels. The result is like a museum piece, a crusty, old-fashioned drama found in the corner of a room covered in dust and unloved. Given the talent on display that’s a shame.
Charlotte Rampling stars as Elizabeth, the head of a rich, grand family. She is lying in her huge bed slowly dying, and her fits of amnesia have left her vulnerable to her staff. Her nurses borrow her clothes, eat her food and let her huge, grand house slowly rot. Her two children turn up to effectively give her the last rites.
Son Basil (Geoffrey Rush) is a dreadful old ham, an actor who has been given a pasting in London, especially for his appalling King Lear. His best performance is perhaps persuading his mother he is doing well, making money and living the high life, when actually he is eyeing up her pretty nurse (played by Schepisi’s daughter) and struggling to get it up.
Then daughter Dorothy (Judy Davis) turns up. She has been married to European minor royalty but had an unhappy marriage, no children and has been effectively abandoned. Together these three characters circle round each other, the two children secretly wanting their mother to die so they can get on with their lives, she stubbornly refusing and trying to connect with them.
We learn that Dorothy in particular was pretty much ignored as a child, and as an adult Elizabeth seems to treat her as a sexual confidante. In particular Elizabeth keeps referring back to an incident in the past when they were on a tropical island with just one man for company, but their memories are very different.
Basil meanwhile is baffled as to why he is seen as such a failure, and takes comfort in the nurse, who has a plan of her own.
There is one scene in which Basil takes his new friend to a play, one of those dreadful Edwardian “anyone for tennis comedies, which pretty much sums up the film’s weaknesses. It’s far too creaky and dull, with huge swathes of dialogue and the dreaded voiceover to really engage. The acting talent on display is considerable, but everyone is acting with a capital A and the characters are impossible to sympathise with. Basil is a theatrical bore and mummy’s boy, Dorothy is brittle as glass and just as cold, and Elizabeth has a ton of secrets in her memory but no way of explaining them with any warmth or feeling. The only real character of note is the family lawyer, a thoroughly decent man who has a few secrets of his own but is far too honest to reveal them.
Overall verdict: Dated, tired-looking, overlong and wordy look at ageing and families, which comes to no great conclusions. It’s not as indulgent as the book but that’s not saying much. A disappointment, given the talent on display.
Reviewer: Mike Martin