TEN EMPTY
TEN EMPTY |
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Elliot fled his Adelaide home for a succesful life in Sydney. Some years later, he reluctantly returns home to find his family in crisis. | score 3+ |
moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable) |
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| Cast Daniel Frederiksen, Geoff Morell, Lucy Bell, Tom Budge, Jack Thompson, Brendan Cowell, Blazey Best Director Anthony Hayes Screenwriter Brendan Cowell Anthony Hayes Country Australia Rating / Running Time MA / 95 minutes Australian Release July 2008 Official Site (c) moviereview
2006-2008
ABN 72 775 390 361 |
If Ten Empty
was a novel, it would be a page-turner. The idea that you can’t
go home is central to Haye’s powerful, often distressing account
of a young man who unwillingly returns to the family fold. An
infrequent visitor from Sydney, professionally successful and socially
elite, twenty-eight year old Elliot (Daniel Frederiksen) is back in
Adelaide for the christening of his stepsister. His father Ross (Geoff
Morrell), wounded, resentful and unemployed has remarried; his younger
brother Brett (Tom Budge) is voluntarily mute and the family is in
crisis. “I left as soon as I could get away,” he laments. The divide between the Sydney-sider, his working class family and friends (including bar manager Jack Thompson) is strikingly exemplified by Ross’s dead-air confusion between Toohey’s Red (beer) and his son’s request for a glass of red (wine). Yet the drama goes far deeper than Bacchanalian misunderstanding. Ross’s late wife is a painful memory for everyone, notably Brett who spends all day locked in his bedroom. When he does venture out it’s to suffer the verbal tirades of his frequently drunk father. Given the film’s narrative weight, and Ten Empty is hardly light viewing, turning objectionable circumstances into a compelling story is one of many pleasant surprises. This is the family that, by and large, lives next door. This is the family that, under different circumstances, becomes front-page news. Tone is foremost and Hayes perfectly captures the tension that follows Elliot from the moment he arrives at Adelaide airport. Minor details become major plot turns as the story unfolds like a suburban thriller. Performance, notably that of Ross and an against-type Tom Budge, distinguish an upsetting yet noteworthy film makes a small but necessary point: while you can’t go home, sometimes you have to. // COLIN FRASER |