Strange Planet

Rating - 4 stars (out of 5)

Too many reviewers have tried to compare Emma-Kate Croghan's second feature with her first, Love and Other Catastrophes. Well you'd expect that, since they are relatively the same subject matter. I'm not though, because I have not seen it. But I will most definitely see it soon, because I was very impressed with "Strange Planet".

It's not often that directors play it straight off the bat. Most try to pull off something amazing and fail miserably, others go for the 'play it dumb' method to make it accessible for everyone, as Steven (Hugo Weaving) so rightly puts it in the film. Croghan as a director oozes class; she knows what she is doing. In other hands it could have been very messy.

The tagline is perhaps the best summary of the film one could put it. Three girls, three guys, 365 days to get it together. We follow the trials and tribulations of the two separate groups, who encounter the usual mid-twenties "What am I going to do with life?" crisis, fall in and out of love, rave parties etc etc. All told with amusing results. Though the material is far from original, I never felt as if I needed to scream out "I've seen it ALL before!!!". Croghan adds in her own dose of tricks along the way to make sure it definitely sets it apart from other films, for example watch out for the ongoing discussion of a lady's handbag!

Claudia Karvan wonderfully plays Judy who begins the film with so much assurance but begins to lose herself as her world starts falling apart. Naomi Watts (Alice) is great too and easy to watch. In fact all the actors gave first class performances. There is so much to like about the film, that the ending comes as a bit of a let down. It's the ending you want for the characters, but not exactly the right ending for you. A little too sentimental and over-done and way too predictable.

Australian films have come a long way since Gallipoli, Strictly Ballroom and even the recent Shine. No longer are we compelled to just one or two great films a year. We are producing them like never before. Strange Planet sits with the best of them this year - Two Hands and Siam Sunset. With Croghan, Karvan and Watts we have many good things to look forward to.

If, like me, you liked _Love and other catatastrophes_, then you'll probably like this too. It's not quite a sequel, but it does follow young Aussies thru the period just after college. It concerns three fairly likeable guys and three not-unattractive girls in this in the awkward but enjoyable phase of life, and views their often quirky attitudes to relationships with a non-judgemental eye. It's full of humour, and it's only major faults are that some of the characters and plotlines are a bit cliched and you can see the ending coming from a long way back.

Like a few other Australian entries from 1999, 'Strange Planet' is gorgeously filmed but appallingly scripted and acted. The story sees two sets of three friends (three girls and three guys) who stumble to and from bad relationships. In a nutshell, that's basically the plot. Spanning a year, the film certainly covers a lot of time. And neatly too. Each new month is visually introduced by some stunning time-lapse sequences of Syndey. However, once plot and character development come into swing, then the movie just falls flat on its face. Dialogue feels too sparse and wanna-be offbeat, not to mention being so predictable and underdeveloped that it feels more like a synopsis than dialogue. The 'witty' nihilist-turned-romantic banter about relationships is anything but. The plot likewise feels all too familiar, and the ending comes paradoxically unsurprising and undeveloped, so undeveloped that the last shot (an overhead of the six eating breakfast) feels like an insulting attempt at gratifying the audience. Yet another sad triumph of of style over substance. Try 'The Big Night Out' for similar results.

2/5

After her promising debut, Love and other Catastrophes, made on a shoestring budget and employing mostly ex-Aussie soap stars, Emma Kate Groghan misfired with this Friends-style "comedy" - if you can call it that. While her debut embodied verve and a vitality borne of its low-budget, Strange Planet has the opposite effect, mainly because of its bigger budget. With more money, the sets and photography are better but the acting and story are substandard Home and Away fare with a touch of melancholic romanticism thrown in to evoke quasi-seriousness. The acting is okay at times but most of the actors can't really summon enough gusto to deal with the cliché-ridden script. The film is only really notable for the inclusion of Naomi Watts who coincidentally made the pilot for Mulholland Drive the same year. Visually, the film resembles an ecstasy-induced advert with bright tones and little else. One to avoid.

This is the second of Emma-Kate Croghan's two likeable films and has a great trio of energetic women, Claudia Karvin, Naomi Watts and Alice Garner, who drive the film forward.

While it seems fairly obvious that they will end up with the trio of male lawyers, the film manages to duck and weave and move quickly enough to keep you wondering until the end.

Unfortunately after these two films, Croghan did not make another film, which took a lot of fun away from us all.