Strange Planet

After her promising debut, Love and other Catastrophes, made on a shoestring budget and employing mostly ex-Aussie soap stars, Emma Kate Groghan misfired with this Friends-style "comedy" - if you can call it that. While her debut embodied verve and a vitality borne of its low-budget, Strange Planet has the opposite effect, mainly because of its bigger budget. With more money, the sets and photography are better but the acting and story are substandard Home and Away fare with a touch of melancholic romanticism thrown in to evoke quasi-seriousness. The acting is okay at times but most of the actors can't really summon enough gusto to deal with the cliché-ridden script. The film is only really notable for the inclusion of Naomi Watts who coincidentally made the pilot for Mulholland Drive the same year. Visually, the film resembles an ecstasy-induced advert with bright tones and little else. One to avoid.

In Australia, New Year finds two different groups of friends, 3 men and 3 women, begin their years in a variety of different ways, however each has ambitions and resolutions relating to their love lives. However, during the course of the following year things don't go quite as they would have foreseen or hoped in most cases.

This film relates to the topic that is hardly new ground - that of love and relationships in our modern age. In the same way, the manner in which the film tells it's story will also seem like it's not doing anything new in a new way, for it isn't. The film homage's (or rips off) several recent (at the time) films such as Shallow Grave and Trainspotting for it's visual style as well as other `youf' romantic comedies for it's content (as well as a seemingly pointless venture off into Taxi Driver territory that does nothing but prove the writers once watched Taxi Driver!).

However, having said that, it still does manage to be quite entertaining and have it's own rough bit of charm to it. It isn't really very funny at any point but it does manage to be quite realistically downbeat without being totally depressing. If anything this rather bleak view of relationships is quite realistic and refreshingly honest - a shame then that it goes and plumps for a happy ending of sorts which relies on coincidence and the usual unlikely devices of romantic comedies. The characters are not that well drawn but they have enough realism to them to make them recognisable and their problems and experiences also relatable. Having 2 groups of 3 character does overstretch the film somewhat though, and some issues are not really dealt with in any meaningful way (an attempted rape just seems to happen without any follow up for instance), but on the whole it works reasonably well.

I'm not sure if the cast are well known in Australia, but I had never seen any of them before (with the exception of Watts and Weaving of course). This helped the characters a bit, as I only knew them as who they were playing. Some of the male actors struggled a bit and it is the three female leads that have the best parts - Watts and Karvan having the meatier characters but Garner being cute, sexy and fun!

Overall this film is not original or different from many other films you could see, but it's bleak view of modern relationships is interesting and involving (until it blows it) and the characters were recognisable enough to involve me in the film for the duration.

Fans of Australian film cannot possibly ignore Emma-Kate Croghan's triumphant second feature. I have not personally seen the apparently superior "Love and Other Catastrophes", but must say that it would have to be an absolute masterpiece to beat "Strange Planet".

Effortlessly sophisticated humour from writer/producer Stavros Kazantzidis (also of "Love and Other Catastrophes"), classy direction from Croghan and magnificent performances from all involved make this film one to be remembered for a long time. It undoubtedly rates alongside the best Australian comedies of the last decade, such as "Two Hands" and "Kiss or Kill". Claudia Karvan and Naomi Watts (recently discovered for her magnificent performance in David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive") give spectacular performances, as does the ever-reliable Hugo Weaving.

The disarming charm and style of "Strange Planet" leaves many overseas romantic comedies seem like insignificant gurgles in the background. No-one who enjoys the sophistication and class of Australian cinema can avoid this wonder-work. Four bright, sparkling stars for "Strange Planet".

I thought it was a pretty good movie. The acting was good and the story was well told. It's one of those *feel good movies* that you know how it's going to turn out but you want to watch and see how it all ends anyway.

If, like me, you liked _Love and other catatastrophes_, then you'll probably like this too. It's not quite a sequel, but it does follow young Aussies thru the period just after college. It concerns three fairly likeable guys and three not-unattractive girls in this in the awkward but enjoyable phase of life, and views their often quirky attitudes to relationships with a non-judgemental eye. It's full of humour, and it's only major faults are that some of the characters and plotlines are a bit cliched and you can see the ending coming from a long way back.