Envy

Coming in at 83 minutes I can recommend this a decent investment in time. It is a standard thriller with some nods towards sexual, family and class politics and the story though never rising to great levels nevertheless holds the interest as two women become involved in an increasingly bitter struggle following the theft of one's dress from a clothesline by the other. Coming from a middle class Australian background it is interesting to see middle class Australia as the canvas this story is told on. Though not a great film, it nevertheless hits the modest mark it aims for- certainly I enjoyed it more than the average big budget overblown levithian that is usually thrown at the screen these days.

I want 2 hours of my life back. This movie, though well acted, descends into totally illogical plot lines, as if the family portrayed were in withdrawal from crack cocaine. One asks, as in the other comment, why the police were not called. But totally unbelievable is how a mother knocks into unconsciousness a teenage girl in a shopping mall complex and suddenly has her waking in an office tied to a door - didn't anyone notice mum dragging the body through the mall? I think this film is the result of the ascendancy of intellectual conceptualists hijacking top positions in Australia's creative colleges (in the late 1970's till today), at the expense of mortar and brick craftmaking. Creativity is not some engagement where a concept, however illogical, stands on it's own merit. The Director claims the movie got rave reviews all over Oz and the world. Either she exaggerates, or film critics are brain dead. The writer (who played the father in the film) claims the story comes from a previous writer and it seems they had a difference of opinion and parted ways before production began. What a shame - I'm sure the original script could not have been worse than the revised one. Though well acted, film is badly wrought, directed and edited, and the DVD should become a worthy beer coaster in a caravan in Woop Woop.

This was a decent watch, but nothing that I would particularly recommend to anyone. Acting performances were generally quite good, and the story certainly off-beat enough to keep one wondering where it would go. For something a little bit different, give it a try---better than the same-old same-old.

This is NOT just another ordinary thriller - it's darker, has more behind the scenes, is less polished, has more substance. However, the only way the story could succeed was with some unbelievably stupid plot developments: it seems the script writers have almost totally ignored the possibility of police and/or psychiatric involvement...surely after your teenaged son has been raped, you'd get some sort of professional help!! The film gets sillier and sillier as the mother goes through a mid-life crisis (complete with alcohol and a different hair-colour) and becomes a vigilante seeking revenge for her family... Okay, what WAS done was done well, but it's actually a pretty bad script. Rating: 6/10.