DISCLOSURE ⭐⭐⭐
How would you react if your best friend's 9 year-old son had just abused and attacked your 4 year-old daughter during a Summer gathering?
It's a very complicated situation, utterly uncomfortable and dysfunctional. It involves kids, modern behavior and bad influence, hormonal confusion, violence, precocious sex.
And if such scandal happens to be in a small, conservative community, including a politician's reputation, things can get out of control, for the sake of good values.
Writer-Director Michael Bentham's debut feature isn't shy of putting all the controversial matter on the table, as the couples, parents of the children, are reunited to discuss the issue and solve it at whatever cost it will take. The film opens with a slow-motion, friendly-like look at the community in movement through the sidewalks, and immediately cuts to the climax of a sexual activity between a couple, enjoying it while recording themselves. It's a sign there's something bizarre about to happen, as the residents of such a quiet community seem to have unusual, straight-forward habits. The use of slow motion continues through the film, especially highlighting moments of extreme distress. Cinematographer Mark Carey does a fabulous job with enhanced lights on the sunny, green-filled Australian estate, with beautiful observations on insects, shades into the woods, the shining water, the heat, fire, leaves, and of course, the facial confrontations.
The four actors who play both couples dealing with this disturbing moral issue give courageously convincing performances, roles influenced by stage-techniques but in complete harmony with the magic imagery of the screen.
Another fascinating attribute to the film is the fact we barely see the children. There's a glimpse of the boy in an euphoric attack at the beginning, and we finally see the accuser, the 4-year-old Natasha at the very last scene. With the premise of abuse predominating throughout the narrative, many ideas are proposed, with relevance on modern adults' behavior, and children's behavior, resulting in a stirring, investigative and thought-provoking analysis on loyalty, righteousness, acceptance, frustration, privilege and sexual taboo.
Director Bentham masterly pushes the players to drastic conclusions, as they insist on their distinctive perspectives on the case, hurting, offending and committing attacks to each other's privacy in order to save themselves from the scandal.
A very satisfying and well-done dramatic production, it suffers from repetitive dialogue, but despite that flaw, it's a controversial, gripping, intense and authentic account on human instinct and priorities.
