peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 04 02 RomulusMyFather

Romulus, My Father (2007)

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On a DVD extracted from Orange City Library. Extraneous Eric Bana completism. He plays a Romanian father with a peripatetic German wife transplanted to rural Victoria after the war. The main theme is the democratised abundance of poverty and mental unwellness in the 1960s.

I don't know much about Raimond Gaita (and I don't have the patience to read his impressions of this movie) beyond him being a general fixture in the Australian (read Melbourne) literary scene a decade or two back. His book (the source material) clearly meant a lot to many people (see Goodreads) but this adaptation, directed by Richard Roxburgh, is inessential and lifeless. Bana does OK, as he always does, and a young Kodi Smit-McPhee (playing Raimond) leads and similarly does OK. Franka Potente (I remember Run Lola Run being marketed to death about a decade prior) and Marton Csokas are also OK. All the actors are OK but it's not enough.

Margaret and David at the time (with thanks to Ozflicks for doing what the ABC seemingly cannot).