Quite apart from the fact that recapping the plot of this movie is entirely pointless as everyone has either read it or watched the movie many times by this point, I only decided to go see this screening quite late when I was buying tickets and realised the original cast was going to be at the screenings.

Landing as this movie did in the first year of the new century and Sydney 2000 Olympics optimism a lot of people would have strong nostalgic feelings towards this movie. I know from my own research into historical Australian media that society and culture has changed quite significantly even during the time I have been alive.

Not everything ages that well as I have found out. Even stuff that I liked at the time has other reasons why I do not enjoy it as much now. In this case I also wanted to see if Dan Ilic from A Rational Fear was actually in it like he said he was. I looked and looked but could not find him. Must have just been an extra!

While some of the plot does seem a bit old-fashioned these days, I am pleased to say it really does hold up and the audience at the screening seemed to laugh at almost everything in the movie even the things you would think were meant to be serious.

Most of the actors seem to not have disgraced themselves too much in the 25 years since the movie apart from the exact one you are thinking of. Was great to see Kick Gurry and Pia Miranda at the Q&A after the movie with the screenwriter Melina Marchetta and the two leads even went to the pub downstairs for a drink. Kick Gurry ended up watching the movie which he described as “an out of body experience”. This reminded me of going to see the 25^th anniversary of Bad Boy Bubby where the actress who played “Cherrie the Salvo” and Nicholas Hope also watched the film (the lead does a lot of Q&As to stand in for Rolf de Heer who can’t be arsed).

Was a fun Q&A session with some surprising things like Pia Miranda saying she still has her original script with her acting notes and Kick Gurry saying how his sister hated that he was playing the love interest as she had the hots for the character in the book. Also, that he still had the bit of paper with a statement from the character that he got from the director originally. They went through 6 different actors before they got Pia Miranda for the role, I could not think of anyone else in the role!

The screenwriter Melina Marchetta had some differences of opinion with the adaptation and that the John Barton character is interpreted as being gay when he was not. He most closely reminded me about a similar character in Dead Poet’s Society who also had family and societal pressure to go a certain way and rejected it.

Still well worth going to go see this movie on the re-release and to get the 4K remaster version which will no doubt come in a bells and whistles release from Umbrella Entertainment who did the remaster.

Film details:

Director: Kate Woods

Producer: Robyn Kershaw

Screenwriter: Melina Marchetta

Cinematographer: Toby Oliver

Composer: Alan John

Editor: Martin Connor

Key Cast: Matthew Newton, Greta Scacchi, Anthony LaPaglia, Kick Gurry, Pia Miranda

Genre: Drama, Comedy

Country: Australia

Language: English, Italian with subtitles

Length: 103min

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krogZxNGHm8