Little Fish

Director Rowan Woods and his collaborators have crafted a totally absorbing urban drama about complex homosapiens whose lives have been compromised by drugs and various addictions.

Cate Blanchett is Tracy, the film's lynch-pin, a Western suburbs girl whose ambitions to get ahead are thwarted by financial and personal skeletons from her past.

Scribe Jacqueline Perske manipulates a tangled web of characters ranging from Sam Neil's retiring drug baron Brad to Hugo Weaving's failed yuppie junkie Lionel. Noni Hazlehurst, in a riveting performance, plays family matriarch Janelle, a woman so crippled by regret and betrayal, she can hardly stand upright.

The tone is a few degrees lighter than Woods' brilliant "The Boys" and the Cabramatta milieu is broader, but this is still a beautifully balanced character piece with top notch performances and a restrained third act that avoids the usual clichés.

Supporting turns by Susie Porter (as Jenny) and Joel Tobeck (as Moss) are exceptional.

Though some climactic clarity might have been helpful, this is, nevertheless, emotionally graphic and pictorially intense cinema.

This film is about a woman who tries to get her life back on track after 4 years of heroin addiction.

I find the plot confusing, and the story poorly told. It is a drama, but lacks the drama. The pace of the story is very slow. Even after 90 minutes of the film, the only message I really perceive from the film is that Cate Blanchett's character is unable to get a loan despite repeated attempts. I am particularly annoyed by the excessive use of glares and halos around bright lights. It is not even a nice visual effect to start with anyway. Despite the stellar cast, I find this film unable to deliver what it could have been. I would not recommend it.

As Cate Blanchett said herself, 'Little Fish' is about the people between the middle class and lower class, those who are struggling with their daily lives and are largely ignored. Perske's screenplay is good but it could have been a little tighter as the film does drag at some portions. Woods is good and he brings a certain realness (with the help of the actors) in portraying the complex relationships between the characters. All the main characters, most of them 'recovered' addicts and some returning addicts, try to seek a better life but there is just 'one last trade' that would 'get them to their goals'. Dustin Nguyen (in spite of an uneven accent), Martin Hendersen, Sam Neill and Hugo Weaving are all adequate in their parts and Noni Hazelhurst is wonderful. However, 'Little Fish' belongs to Cate Blanchett. One can see a Blanchett that's completely different from her Hollywood films (then again she's always different in each of her movies). A difficult part required an immensely talented actress and she just makes the task look easy. There's a frightening scene where Cate's Tracy is tempted to 'return' but then a magical scene follows where she walks into a choir rehearsal of a group of singing Vietnamese children and she is confused, conflicted and eventually comforted. This one profound scene was so brilliantly executed with the long shot camera, the innocent voices of the children as they sing the powerful words, and Cate asking repeatedly where the bathroom is while being confused, that the strength of it stays in mind long after the end credits have rolled.

Tracy is an ex-heroin junkie how has cleaned up and wants to start a new life in her new store' but she cant finance her new endeavor. Her brother Ray is a speed dealer looking for his big deal, his friend Jonny is an ex-deal who is now a stock-broker. Lionel is looking to go straight, giving up heroin. Tracy's mother Janelle was friends with Lionel but broke off when he gave Tracy Herion. Lionel is also infatuated with Brad, his dealer.

This is a very strong drama, and its been awhile since Australia has made a good drama. The story is a great look at family, friendship, the pain of change and rejection. Jacqueline Perske script is very deep and multi-layered. There are many sub-plots that keep you constantly thinking. Rowan Wood's direction is a step up from his last feature 'The Boys', being more experimental and more unconventional. The cinematography is wonderful, the use of many washes raise the mood and tension to higher levels, tightening the atmosphere of depression.

This has a stellar cast; Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Noni Hazlehurst, Sam Neill, Lisa McCune, Martin Henderson and Dustin Nguyen all give strong performances, not a single flaw in the acting. Blanchett and Weaving give great career performances, Weaving is just brilliant. Hazlehurst brings a performance so shockingly different, this is not the Nomi you know from 'Play School'.

The only thing i felt was wrong with Little Fish is its just abit to long. If it was cut down by ten minutes or so, it would have the pacing more faster and get to the point a lot quicker.

This is a spring board of better things to come out of Australia.

Writer Jacqueline Perske and Director Rowan Woods chalk up another successful Australian film in LITTLE FISH, an intense, very personal drama about how illegal drugs affect communities, families and individuals. The story begs patience from the viewer as it is gratefully one that does not spell everything out for the viewer, but instead introduces the characters slowly and with hints of backgrounds that bring them to the moments of crisis the time-frame of the film uses.

Taking place in the Little Saigon area of Sydney, Tracy Heart (Cate Blanchett) is a recovered junkie who lives with her mother Janelle (Noni Hazlehurst) and partial amputee brother Ray (Martin Henderson), each trying to make ends meet in a life previously destroyed by drug addiction. Tracy has been clean for four years, works in a video store but has dreams of owning her own business, dreams that are thwarted by banks refusing to give her business loans solely on the basis of her previous addiction. Ray, his amputated leg the result of a car accident somehow connected with drugs, still sells heroin in 'little fish' containers, occasionally calling upon Tracy to make pickups and deliveries. The now absent stepfather Lionel (Hugo Weaving) fights his own addiction both to drugs and to his dealer Brad (Sam Neill) with whom he has been in a gay relationship since his divorce from Janelle. Tracy tries to support Lionel's attempts to kick his habit, but the attempts are failures. Everything comes to a head when 1) Tracy is desperate without her needed bank loan, 2) Tracy's Vietnamese ex-lover Jonny (Dustin Nguyen) returns from Vancouver where his family sent him to avoid the persecution of rehab in Sydney, 3) Brad retires leaving Lionel without a source of drugs or love and Lionel is replaced by a quasi-normal Steven (Joel Tobeck) who kicks the last part of the film into a spin. There are no solutions to anyone's problems: things just happen and the characters respond in the best way they can with the ominous cloud of drug addiction shading their lives and futures.

The script is terse and smart and the direction is relentlessly realistic and well paced. Cate Blanchett gives a sterling portrayal of the very complex Tracy, and Hugo Weaving, Noni Hazelhurst, Sam Neill, Dustin Nguyen, and Martin Henderson are superb. This is a tough little film that does not fear to examine the truth about the effect of drugs on people's lives and spirits. It is a very fine film. Recommended. Grady Harp