“You can feel Hadden’s enthusiasm and love for Lieber shine through. The script could have been tighter and less obvious, but it does punch well above its weight and touches a few heart strings.“
Con Nats
3 /5 $5 notes
It’s always great to see initiative taken by artists in our barren movie wasteland. Newcomer Sasha Hadden has written, directed, produced and even jumped into the editor’s chair for his labour of love and debut feature film.
Duncan is a coughing has-been (which probably wasn’t a stretch for Glenn Shorrock to play). His long suffering partner, Lieber (Maggie Blinco) sits in the audience of two, and happily sits in the car to wait for him. This time, she jumps from inconsequential character to be the lead.
Duncan loses his RSL gig and Lieber tries to bring in some money for him to record an album. He tries to reconnect with his former band mate Justin (John Gregg in his last role) and his wife, Christine (an effervescent Belinda Giblin) who gets on famously with Lieber. Old grievances are aired and things go off the rails for grumpy old Duncan.
Duncan is an awful gas lighter of a partner and after 50 years, Lieber finds her strength and an avenue for escape. She starts to make her dresses by hand, just the way she used to, which makes them Haute couture which impresses young Chinese fashion designer Hamish (Hoa Xuande) at the markets. He helps her find her feet in this new world and she is taken in by a group of Asian students. A lot more could have been made of the culture clash and age difference, but it avoids this obvious twist. It does prefer to be sentimental and forgiving.
Hadden has done exceedingly well in producing and casting this film. He’s done it with no funding from government bodies and you have to realise, with a budget of just $1.5 million, a lot more love than money went into this production.
Alas, while Shorrock is an actual music legend, he can’t act, and he sticks out amongst the real ones. Giblin lifts the script and Blinco delivers her character stoically. Many of the twists seem contrived as it reached for one more melodramatic twist and some didn’t ring true.
What did work was the warm sympathetic acting of Blinco. She was restrained by her character but she is believable and does shine.
You can feel Hadden’s enthusiasm and love for Lieber shine through. The script could have been tighter and less obvious, but it does punch well above its weight and touches a few heart strings.
Con Nats, On The Screen
