Sweetie

Peculiar Kay steals her co-worker's boyfriend Louis which makes her a pariah at her bank. He plants a tree for their anniversary after 13 months and she secretly rips it out of the ground. One night, Kay's unstable sister Sweetie shows up to stay and brings along the very strange Bob. She has not been taking her medication and starts spiralling downwards.

Director Jane Campion creates these damaged people. Their dysfunction holds some interest but they aren't compelling characters. It's a lot oddities without the charisma to be compelling. The lead Colston hasn't done much acting after this movie. I can't feel for these characters and it's hard to root for any of them.

This film left a lasting impression on me from when I saw it aged about 15. Upon many years of reflection I suspect that the two female leads are two opposed elements of the writer's psyche. One, the super-ego and the other the id. The super-ego is fraught with a sense of place in the world, and trying to make the best of the values it finds directly around it, and the id is a tangle of senses and memories, caught up in the deepest recesses of childhood. That's what I found most striking about this film. It's so ego-less. That is what gives it it's fractured, purposeless other-worldly quality. I did not 'enjoy' this film. It is not a fun film. I also remember the light. What amazing glaring, evil sunlight. I must get a copy and watch it again, to see if it's like I remember it. I thought that the acting, editing, dialogue and general sense of timing were totally bewitching. For a week after watching this film I still felt as though I had returned home from a strange, alien world. I had been immersed, albeit temporarily in an extraordinary place, complete and tactile. Amazing.

Quite a dark film that seems to lack the catharsis (or uplifting tones) of the later Campion's films. The film concentrates on psychological problems of Kay, strange, detached young women which, seemingly calm and shy, is able to shamelessly steal a just-engaged man from his fiancee. Kay's life with the boyfriend, however, turns out to be far from happy. What does she want? We do not know that until her younger sister Dawn, aka Sweetie, appears on the scene almost halfway through the film. Dawn has apparently been a spoiled baby in the family. The father even now speaks about her "talents", although he too must see that, in reality, she is a mentally handicapped person whose intellectual and emotional development has been arrested at the level of a 4-year old. Sometimes she is charming, sometimes threatening, but, most importantly, she is uninhibited and free (among other things, free to act on her whims). With the arrival of Dawn, Kay's great animosity towards her sister is immediately apparent. Instead of help and compassion of a "normal" older sister she only offers criticism and open hatred. Little by little we find what Kay wants: she wants to be Dawn. She wants to lose her repressions, she wants to be loved, admired and always forgiven, no matter what she does. Deep psychological analysis of abnormal relations between sisters reminds me of some Ingmar Bergman's works although "Sweetie" does not have the nordic broodiness.

This film is one of the best films ever written and shot about the effects of mental illness on the psycho-dynamics of a family. Shot with a strongly claustrophobic sense of misé-en-scene, the extended family of Louis, Mom, Dad, Kay and Sweetie always crowd and clutter the frame, unable to extricate themselves physically and emotionally from one another. Geneviève Lemon's performance of a mentally ill young women (Sweetie/Dawn) sends chills up the spine of anyone who has worked with those who suffer like this. Although it does contain some nudity and slight sexual content, the dramatic push of the film as a whole makes this an extremely moving film even for teenagers, especially for families who are coping with mental illness. Campion's writing and above all her directing soars in this profound and compelling film.

This is one of the most hilarious movies I have ever seen that deals with such dark issues. It focuses on two sisters, Dawn a.k.a. " Sweetie" and Kay, who both (as we see it) struggle with their psychological health. Kay seems somewhat conscious of, but at the same time unwilling to express her psychological problems. This seems to manifest itself in her sexual problems with Louis. Dawn, on the other hand, seems completely oblivious to the fact that she has problems, and seems to live her life freely and spontaneously. We see the interaction between these characters as a struggle between stifling repression and an out-of-control, externally-destructive unleashing of feelings. The film seems to reconcile these aspects until we reach some sort of balance at the end.

While the film deals with these serious subjects, it is in no way (as far as I'm concerned) a depressing movie. It's filled with comedy, which has been called "black comedy", but in my view the comedy itself doesn't have any heavy, negative under tones. The actress who plays Sweetie is an established comedian and her comedic acting is hilarious and convincing. Sweetie freely expresses herself, in ways that might seem childish to some, but are secretly ways we might like to act if it were accepted. Her character tells us that it's possibly to be so free and unfettered and survive, up to a point.

I love the scene where Sweetie's new, wasted "talent manager" boyfriend is taken to a cafe, by Sweetie's father, in order to get rid of him. At the table Sweetie's father begins to talk about how Sweetie "was such a talented little girl". The boyfriend then spontaneously falls asleep (he has some kind of sleeping sickness). At this point the father tries to remove the boyfriend's coat, which is actually Louis's (Kay's husband), and which they have been trying to get him out of for a long time. The boyfriend, still asleep, then falls to the floor dragging the contents of the table top with him, and ends splayed out on the floor in a baroque mess.

There are numerous comedic scenes like the one above, that weave in and out of the movies' main issues (i.e. control of oneself). Dawn's boyfriend, like Dawn (Sweetie), lacks control over his expression, in this case his actual, physical body.

To add to these delights, the movie is beautifully, artfully photographed and the sets are also artistically satisfying. The soundtrack includes beautiful African gospel. All-in-all, if you're receptive to emotions and understanding them, this will probably be one of the best movies you'll ever see.