Winter of Our Dreams

I saw this movie once about 17 years ago, and have been wanting to buy a copy of the video ever since. Judy Davis & Bryan Brown give outstanding performances. In summary, a drama about a man's search for a woman he thinks he loves and wants to help.

A drama along the lines of 'Klute' transposed to Sidney in the down-to-earth Aussie fashion in gaudy eighties colours in which concluding her Brilliant Career Judy Davis with her usual cynical elegance made a dramatic career move by trading in her stays and crinolines for lipstick & nail varnish the colour of blood blisters wearing a succession of tiny skirts and enormous earrings (appearing thus attired at the funeral of a friend) as a guitar-strumming, drug-addicted frizzy-haired hooker capable of out-staring a Siamese cat who crosses the path of Bryan Brown at whom she snorts derisively when he asks her if she reads books.

A really sad, well-acted film about lost illusions and love gone wrong. We see Sydney's seamier side as well as it's well to do semi-Bohemian lifestyle. A prostitute pushing 30 meets a bookshop owner closer to 40. Despite her job she is the more innocent of the two and falls for him, while he is unwilling to leave his middle-aged, middle class comfort zone. Both Judy Davis and Bryan Brown are superb in difficult roles where she has to grow and develop and he almost shrink before our eyes, which is a thankless task for a charismatic star like Brown, but he succeeds so well he adds to Davis's performance. She on the other hand creates a character you feel you know and want to protect by the end. A truly great performance. The other actors are also very good, and the film further involved me with its real sense of time and location.

There's something deeply real about this film, a next to totally forgotten Australian drama. Judy Davis (in her first feature role since "My Brilliant Career") creates a character with so much depth and straight reality, she'd have to work against it not to draw you in. Writer/director John Duigan creates a world populated by very real individuals, though not certainly likable ones. He goes for a slow-drawn, realist approach that - while leaving the visual appearance a little flat - places you quite exactly in these lives.

I went along with these characters, let them take me wherever they cared to. "Winter of Our Dreams" has this quality of it, this 60s/70s hangover quality of not knowing what really matters anymore. And if that's not something you've been feeling for as long as I have, you'll have a lot of trouble understanding the character of Lou. But let it sink in. It'll get to you.

Twonn by people are brought together through the death of a mutual friend and the woman starts seeing parallels in her relationship with the man that the dead woman had. he is kind but detached. He wishes the best for them but holds them at arms length. Bryan Brown's performance is the most complex. his almost wooden quality actually adds to the enigma of his character. Judy Davis is excellent - a woman with a dark cloud over her who in the end may find a scrap of peace. A tiny gem.