Written and directed by actor Mark Leonard Winter (Pine Gap). Another entry in Hugo Weaving's one-man effort to revive the Australian movie industry; is anyone else even trying at this point?
The answer is yes! — this shares some DNA with Eric Bana's police-procedural Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024). We're taken to a dank, dark forest in Victoria with policeman Phoenix Raei whose sole responsibility appears to be minding his brain-damaged childhood friend Rhys Mitchell (one of the final Neighbours alumni?). The inevitable occurs and in place of Skippy we get Boss the red cattle dog bringing the news. (That we never see the dog again is a major flaw in the story.) For reasons unknown Raei camps near where he found his mate's body and there encounters hermit Hugo. After a saggy and indulgent middle there's a twist with 20 minutes to go with nothing to it.
We've seen Hugo do hermit before, in The Turning. Here he fully commits with much arse baring and alienation from Catholic Christianity. The rooster crowing scene at the campfire with Raei was a poor rejoinder to Brad Pitt's "sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken!" The author has no clue about hermits, preferring the normative take that solitude equals loneliness and people redemption. Having Raei leave his campfire burning while visiting Weaving was mystifying. The poem Raei is keen on is revealed to be Cavafy's The God Abandons Antony which is eerily familiar as it was freely adapted by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson into Alexandra Leaving.
I did not enjoy Craig Barden's cinematography. The music is occasionally interesting but too fetishized.
Luke Buckmaster. There's not enough on the table for it to go any other way. Stephen Romei observes all the details including the poem.
