Sweet and simple
Sometimes it's good to watch a film that tells a simple story well, has characters who are all decent human beings, has actors who play those characters straightforwardly and sympathetically, and doesn't take itself too seriously. This is one of those films.
Australia has only a small film industry by world standards, and it suffers from the fact that when anyone of real talent emerges, he or she is invariably whisked off to the dollars of Hollywood very rapidly, so that most of our best people, not only actors but directors and all the others who work to make a film, don't make films in Australia. It's therefore a welcome surprise when an Australian film turns out to be good. One very common problem is the lack of good screenplays: most of them have fundamental problems of structure, and nearly all of them have not been developed sufficiently. This one's a good one. The idea of a truck driver writing Mills and Boon romances is interesting in itself; the enlisting of a local girl to "front" for the real author is a predictable but acceptable nest step: and the romance that slowly but surely emerges out of the background to take over towards the end is also predictable but very nicely and gently done.
The film didn't make much of a public stir when it was released, in fact I don't recall it in cinemas at all. It comes up every now and again on TV, and it's much underrated. It also deserves a much higher user rating than its current 6.1. Perhaps it's the lack of pretension itself that leads viewers to mark it down.
If you're looking at IMDb wondering whether to bother with this film, then my suggestion is to bother. It won't change your world, but it will amuse you and leave you feeling happy.
Australia has only a small film industry by world standards, and it suffers from the fact that when anyone of real talent emerges, he or she is invariably whisked off to the dollars of Hollywood very rapidly, so that most of our best people, not only actors but directors and all the others who work to make a film, don't make films in Australia. It's therefore a welcome surprise when an Australian film turns out to be good. One very common problem is the lack of good screenplays: most of them have fundamental problems of structure, and nearly all of them have not been developed sufficiently. This one's a good one. The idea of a truck driver writing Mills and Boon romances is interesting in itself; the enlisting of a local girl to "front" for the real author is a predictable but acceptable nest step: and the romance that slowly but surely emerges out of the background to take over towards the end is also predictable but very nicely and gently done.
The film didn't make much of a public stir when it was released, in fact I don't recall it in cinemas at all. It comes up every now and again on TV, and it's much underrated. It also deserves a much higher user rating than its current 6.1. Perhaps it's the lack of pretension itself that leads viewers to mark it down.
If you're looking at IMDb wondering whether to bother with this film, then my suggestion is to bother. It won't change your world, but it will amuse you and leave you feeling happy.
- Felix-28
- Jan 5, 2012