The Eye of the Storm

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Audience Member This is a great movie. The human tragedy in a movie. Great cast, great direction and script. Must see Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Although there are big name actors here, the film diminishes the book, turning it into farce much of the time. Thx book is funny as well as serious, but the humour is more sophisticated than the film. Read the book. It’s not an easy read but it’s a great novel and very satisfying to read. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/19/19 Full Review Audience Member Apparently everybody fucking hates this movie, though for reasons I can't quite grasp. Maybe I'm crazy, but to me it felt like Schepisi had total control over his tone; it had that great feeling of a serious drama that makes one laugh in every scene (extremely rare in modern Australian cinema, where grimness rules), and then by the end I was in tears. And the acting is uniformly terrific, especially the supporting cast (Robyn Nevin has one particularly excellent scene reacting to an unwelcome revelation). I mean, I don't expect my tastes to line up with the consensus every time, but I'm really surprised how reviled and ignored this movie is. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Audience Member A dour and bitter sweet family drama starring Geoffrey Rush, Charlotte Rampling and Judy Davis. Rampling plays Elizabeth Hunter, the wealthy matriarch of a fractured and dysfunctional Australian family. As she hovers close to death, her children return from lives lacking real success in Europe to circle like vultures and try to secure the inheritance they desperately need. Although weak and at times delirious, the dying woman is still able to stir up deeply felt emotions of hurt, betrayal, loyalty and jealousy in her offspring and the nursing staff who look after her. The mood is lightened by several genuinely funny incidents and you do feel drawn into the situations that have obviously riven this family for many years. However, whilst the cast is superb, the directing from Fred Schepisi is patchy and makes it hard to really sympathise adequately with any of the characters. It seems more observational rather than empathetic giving it all a rather distant feeling. For me, this movie was caught between black comedy and melodrama and doesn't really successfully manage to be fully one or the other. I did however really love the genuine evocation of the 1970s in which the film is set which gave the whole thing a very chic and sophisticated air. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/13/23 Full Review Frances H Watched this flick because the three actors are so good, and as usual they were worth watching, but in the movie itself, their three characters were people so horrible, one really couldn't care about them at all. I wish I'd passed this one by. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/14 Full Review Audience Member Maybe it's just because I like Patrick White, but seriously, 58% fresh/45% liked it is not a fair score for this film. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Eye of the Storm

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