Spider & Rose

Zapping away late at night, I catched that movie just as it was starting.

I was intrigued by the nightmare-like shot of the woman besides the dead man on the side of the street. That was certainly the purpose of said shot, and in a way, the whole movie is trying to avoid us from loosing interest... which isn't a good sign, generally.

Funnily enough, there are still just about enough qualities that made me stick to it.

As was very well described in a previous comment, the film has a good cinematography, and you realize how poorly filmed about 80% of what you see when you turn on TV is...

Then, the story manages to stay touching, and full of surprises, again well stated in that other comment.

I almost wished someone had helped the director to lift his film above the thin line he was very close to be crossing. It's so hard to combine comedy, grotesque, horror, and whatever else he tried to put in that movie (I'm typing this while it's running, I left the TV on... just to tell that I was more curious to know what I had found than to really watch all the way...).

SO: it's not a success, but, to me, it came just at the right time to show me that a failure by people who where SOMEHOW inspired and had a certain know-how in making movies can be a relief - after watching TV for hours. Reminding one that TV mostly just PRETENDS to show you nice pictures. But when you see REAL cinematography, REAL story-telling with pictures, you snap out of your mind-nap. You look up, and you start using your mind again.

Just one humble testimony... obviously not aiming for any objectivity.

If you like movies a lot... if certain movies have played an important part in your life... then maybe you shouldn't miss this one!

...It's ending as I finish, I glanced from time to time. It gets better and better as it goes. Better than I expected.

I think being an Australian would be a lot harder if it weren't for people like Ruth Cracknell. & it is interesting how much of her iconic work dealt with people who aren't spoken of much in polite society - the old. (see *Mother and Son*) This movie is another charming example, & it makes me crack up each time I see it. Sure, the 'street lingo' is out of date and the references to other bits of nineties culture won't stick to people who weren't there, but that is no reason for it to be kept out of the way like so many other Australian films. Because it IS very funny, and strange enough for some, the young still relate to the old these days.

Absolutely brilliant comedy-drama about the most unlikely of friends - a fragile old lady and a young rebel. Ruth Cracknell and Simon Bossell are fantastic in their roles. This is a wonderful, feel-good road trip adventure that embodies so many emotions we can all relate to. 'Spider & Rose' is one of my all-time favorite films!

"Spider and Rose" dates from 1994, the last year in which the Australian film industry was in anything approaching good health (or in which it looked as though it might have been in something approaching good health). Watch it now and you will immediately sense what's been missing in subsequent productions. For all its weaknesses "Spider and Rose" is, at least, a real movie. It LOOKS like a real movie. Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie has pulled off a miracle in making rural Australian landscapes look good on film, without making them look false; ironically, seven years later, he would later pull of the even greater miracle of making New Zealand landscapes look bad (AND false, in "The Fellowship of the Rings"). Bennett directs with brisk-but-not-too-brisk confidence, without allowing the pointless camera gimmicks he's sometimes unable to resist spoil everything, as he would do three years later with "Kiss or Kill". (Okay, the rapid 180-degree switching we get when Spider first meets Rose DOES ruin that scene completely, but that's just the one scene; perhaps it would have died anyway.)

There are other weaknesses (not once but twice do we get that old chestnut in which someone vehemently declares that he will never, ever, under any circumstances, do X, just before we cut to him doing X; I have now seen this done in movies 683 times, usually with the same sloppiness and pointlessness with which it's done here); but in the end, what makes the movie worthwhile, what makes it satisfying, is that it manages to be continually surprising without once being arbitrary. The "wacky" things that happen to the characters are all justified. Stranger still: Bennett keeps undermining his characters with one-liners (Spider especially; less so Rose; still less so Jack, who seems to CONSIST of one-liners), yet they end up feeling perfectly real.

This film is a gem. Not much of a gem - the common kind of chalcedony, perhaps - but enough of a gem to be worth taking some trouble to find.

A very warm and lovely film set in the beautiful countryside of New South Wales, Australia. Sometimes a film has such a simple message to convey that it doesn't need a multi-million dollar budget to get it across. This is the attraction of Spider And Rose - the Australians have such a knack at making films that are honest and ordinary but the result is spectacular in its simplicity. Two people from different worlds come together and touch each others lives - the message is clear, the result uplifting and you'll be glad you invested the time to watch. Maybe there's a bit of Rose in all of us - for me, I hope I find out before it's too late! PS - if this film doesn't give you the desire to hit the road one day - watch it again!