Sweetie

Peculiar Kay steals her co-worker's boyfriend Louis which makes her a pariah at her bank. He plants a tree for their anniversary after 13 months and she secretly rips it out of the ground. One night, Kay's unstable sister Sweetie shows up to stay and brings along the very strange Bob. She has not been taking her medication and starts spiralling downwards.

Director Jane Campion creates these damaged people. Their dysfunction holds some interest but they aren't compelling characters. It's a lot oddities without the charisma to be compelling. The lead Colston hasn't done much acting after this movie. I can't feel for these characters and it's hard to root for any of them.

Australian filmmaker Jane Campion's unorthodox daydream of family ties will likely infuriate more people than it pleases, defeating expectations as easily as it defies casual analysis. Describing it in any detail would only spoil the joy of discovery, for both the story and the idiosyncratic style of the film itself, which turns an already cockeyed domestic melodrama (introducing the oddball in-laws of an estranged young couple) into a sometimes grotesque but strangely compassionate portrait of sad, eccentric people living on the fringes of Down Under society.

Campion challenges the viewer's perception of what is or isn't real, using a portentous, artfully composed visual scheme, emphasizing in every shot her eye for geometry and deadpan comic detail. And then, mid-way through the story, along comes Sweetie herself to upset all the symmetry. Her younger sister calls her "a dark force"; her father treats her (affectionately) as the child she'll always be to him; and her mother, out of exasperation, simply walks away from all the subsequent turmoil. In a nutshell, Sweetie is the loose cannon in every family closet, and as played by newcomer Geneviève Lemon she's one of the more obscene and compelling characters ever to crash a movie scenario. Her story is, by turns, tender, pathetic, amusing, ominous, totally unique, and just plain weird.

When it starts off with the eccentric and shy Kay (Karen Colston) falling in love with the handsome Louis (Tom Lycos), Jane Campion's 1988 film SWEETIE promises a romantic comedy. When Kay's mentally ill sister Dawn (Genevieve Lemon) drops in, the film develops in a very different direction. Some element of comedy, very black humour, remains but overall the film is a family tragedy.

The tragedy is that this disturbed young woman nicknamed "Sweetie" is simultaneously a victim of her own illness and an unwilling aggressor against her family, who feign love and acceptance but clearly would like to do without her. The strongest aspect of the film is Lemon's performance, one of the best screen portrayals of mental illness since Bergman's IN A GLASS DARKLY. Something I appreciate more on repeat viewing is that the background to this family drama is left ambiguous. That said, I would not list "Sweetie" among my favourite films: it is overall well-made and memorable but not quite at the level of effusive praise.

This film left a lasting impression on me from when I saw it aged about 15. Upon many years of reflection I suspect that the two female leads are two opposed elements of the writer's psyche. One, the super-ego and the other the id. The super-ego is fraught with a sense of place in the world, and trying to make the best of the values it finds directly around it, and the id is a tangle of senses and memories, caught up in the deepest recesses of childhood. That's what I found most striking about this film. It's so ego-less. That is what gives it it's fractured, purposeless other-worldly quality. I did not 'enjoy' this film. It is not a fun film. I also remember the light. What amazing glaring, evil sunlight. I must get a copy and watch it again, to see if it's like I remember it. I thought that the acting, editing, dialogue and general sense of timing were totally bewitching. For a week after watching this film I still felt as though I had returned home from a strange, alien world. I had been immersed, albeit temporarily in an extraordinary place, complete and tactile. Amazing.

This is one of the most hilarious movies I have ever seen that deals with such dark issues. It focuses on two sisters, Dawn a.k.a. " Sweetie" and Kay, who both (as we see it) struggle with their psychological health. Kay seems somewhat conscious of, but at the same time unwilling to express her psychological problems. This seems to manifest itself in her sexual problems with Louis. Dawn, on the other hand, seems completely oblivious to the fact that she has problems, and seems to live her life freely and spontaneously. We see the interaction between these characters as a struggle between stifling repression and an out-of-control, externally-destructive unleashing of feelings. The film seems to reconcile these aspects until we reach some sort of balance at the end.

While the film deals with these serious subjects, it is in no way (as far as I'm concerned) a depressing movie. It's filled with comedy, which has been called "black comedy", but in my view the comedy itself doesn't have any heavy, negative under tones. The actress who plays Sweetie is an established comedian and her comedic acting is hilarious and convincing. Sweetie freely expresses herself, in ways that might seem childish to some, but are secretly ways we might like to act if it were accepted. Her character tells us that it's possibly to be so free and unfettered and survive, up to a point.

I love the scene where Sweetie's new, wasted "talent manager" boyfriend is taken to a cafe, by Sweetie's father, in order to get rid of him. At the table Sweetie's father begins to talk about how Sweetie "was such a talented little girl". The boyfriend then spontaneously falls asleep (he has some kind of sleeping sickness). At this point the father tries to remove the boyfriend's coat, which is actually Louis's (Kay's husband), and which they have been trying to get him out of for a long time. The boyfriend, still asleep, then falls to the floor dragging the contents of the table top with him, and ends splayed out on the floor in a baroque mess.

There are numerous comedic scenes like the one above, that weave in and out of the movies' main issues (i.e. control of oneself). Dawn's boyfriend, like Dawn (Sweetie), lacks control over his expression, in this case his actual, physical body.

To add to these delights, the movie is beautifully, artfully photographed and the sets are also artistically satisfying. The soundtrack includes beautiful African gospel. All-in-all, if you're receptive to emotions and understanding them, this will probably be one of the best movies you'll ever see.