Alexandra's Project

The movie was perfectly shot. I was nervous and afraid from beginning to end. The director brought me along every step of the story. The acting is spectacular. What shocked me the most about this movie is the utter, pure hate. I have one question though: what is wrong with Anglo-Saxon culture? What inspired Rolf De Heer to write a story about a woman who hates her husband so much that she wants to humiliate, debase, destroy and keep him from his own children forever. I understand that she would want to get back at him for having humiliated and neglected her but not want him killed alive. I've noticed that women in Anglo-Saxon movies can be protrayed as extremely hatefull and vendictive. This movie made me realise how bad things could become between two people. If anyone wants to get married they should first see this movie. Then if they still want to, they will have been forewarned.

"Alexandra's Project" begins masterfully, setting a dark and heavy mood long before the plot reveals itself. When the plot does reveal itself, it is done craftily, piece by piece, as if you were a bird being led into a trap one crumb at a time. This is exactly how the main character is trapped also.

For the first hour I loved this film and couldn't believe I had never heard of such an intelligent thriller before. This abruptly turned when the complex story quickly unravelled to a cheap rip off of every bad Hollywood cat-and-mouse flick ever made.

How did this happen? Because the lead character who, for the first half of the movie, was shown to be smart, resourceful and level-headed, turns into a whiskey swilling moron, gets drunk and spends the the last half of the movie soaking in self-pity while not taking the obvious actions to fix the situation.

That's what I mean in my title. You will be so aggravated at how dense the main character becomes that you will likely hurl your popcorn at the screen in disgust. Like in those cheap slasher flicks when the murderer is hiding in the house, and somehow the idiot victim decides it's a good idea to go into that dark room anyway. Cheap thrills are fun in cheap movies, but I was led to expect a bit more from this award-winning film.

The message of the film itself, offensive as it may be to some, wasn't what bothered me. The movie ridicules feminism by portraying the villain as a rabid, man-hating, feminist psycho. But my gripe isn't about that. My gripe is the fact that the villain's plan turned out to be totally half-baked, and only a total dolt would play into it. A simple call to the cops, and all the bad guys could've been traced, rounded up and punished. But no, instead let's get plastered on whiskey and feel sorry for ourselves until the end of time. As others have commented, the characters and their actions defy sensibility.

I actually recommend that you watch this film so you'll see how a great idea can come apart with shoddy writing. This movie will probably leave you feeling sickened, not by the plot or the director's message but simply by the director's ability to ruin an otherwise good idea. Four stars out of 10, only because it did keep me interested for an hour.

I have never sat through a more gut wrenchingly horrid and frustrating film than Alexandra's Project. You'll be stuck in a cramped room with a crazy woman ranting about her hang ups with sex on a video for the better part of an hour.... pray your remote still works and that you can eject this before you throw something through your television.

I have to say, I'm a bit confused by the responses of so many people to "Alexandra's Project". Enough Australians have gone to see it for it to be one of the only art-house films in my living memory to make it into the Top 10 at the Box Office, but no-one really seems to like it, with the exception of a few critics. In fact, when I came out of the cinema after seeing it, I heard one woman say, "That was a really bad movie." And this intrigues me - in what way is this a "really bad movie"? I can understand that very few people will enjoy it. I personally cannot say that I did. But as to its technique, construction, delivery etc., how can you fault it? The only explanation that occurs to me is that audiences are so alienated by the material that they can't notice a) Gary Sweet and Helen Buday's amazing performances, b) tight direction, c) brilliant sound and film editing and d) eerily effective cinematography. Perhaps Australian audiences don't like to be provoked in this kind of way, and I can see how that could easily be the case. "Alexandra's Project" is a feel-bad movie to end all feel-bad movies. It makes "Leaving Las Vegas" look like "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood". But does that make it a "really bad" movie? Some have actually criticised the material for being mundane - I REALLY don't understand that. Rolf de Heer has come up with a phenomenally complex and thought-provoking story, which, with the benefit of an amazing cast and very skilled technical crew who don't seem at all affected by what was a ridiculously low-budget, has been made into one of the (technically) best Australian films in years. If you don't want your films to be challenging, then don't bother - you'll hate it. But if you DO go and see it, try to accept it for what it is, which is an unpleasant but brilliant film that will give you food for thought for the next year.

That being said, I don't think I could ever watch it again, and probably couldn't bear to watch a film that I thought would be anything like it. It's impossible to come out of with your emotions at all intact.

Objectively speaking, ten out of ten. Congratulations Rolf. But in terms of audience enjoyment? Impossible to assess. Just watch it for yourself and see.

An ambitious film, which continues in the tradition of De Heer's fearless tackling of issues which began with the confronting "Bad Boy Bubby". Despite "Alexandra's Project's" interesting premise, the film fails to sustain emotional impact on the viewer, thanks to the scant nature of the plot. In what boils down to be one woman's tirade against her partner's sexual aggression, this film is so heavily weighted towards her own perspective, the viewer is never emotionally complicit, because the film fails to deliver a full and realistic portrait of the marriage. We briefly witness the family's interaction, but after that, we are left to consume Alexandra's bitterness - and believe it.

Gary Sweet delivers a raw and emotional performance, and Helen Buday as Alexandra is polished and convincing. Her character, however, is two dimensional, and, by the end, the viewer is left in a state of not caring about her actions. Add to this Alexandra's unbelievable and unjustified final torment, and you are left with a film which had a fantastic concept at its core, but sustains only a mildly successful delivery.

For a good De Heer film, get "The Tracker", which is more subtle, and a more accomplished piece overall.