Rain

Rain is the type of New Zealand movie that New Zealanders love. Slice of Kiwiana presented with high art mixed with bleakness.

People have berated the double barreled ending as contrived but it is also symbolic. Janey comes of age through one event and is hit home that she can't go back through the other.

The acting is great. And the cinematography almost steals the show.

Kiwi batch life is presented in full force. A young girl's all too fast growing up because of the parents selfishness is presented with only a hint of sentimentality and emotional manipulation.

It does not actually rain in this movie, but there is a sullen, overcast feel to it. Usually family holidays are recalled with some affection – the bad bits edited out. In this family's story from the 1970s there's not much that is pleasant to recall. Mum is drinking herself to oblivion and having an affair with a neighbour, Dad is not coping either, and the 13 year old daughter is confused and frightened by the goings on. Her little brother, a sunny kid, is not so affected. Early on, it is plain that some kind of tragedy is going to happen.

Apart from some of the flattened vowels, and the unremarkable coastline just north of Auckland this is a story that could be set anywhere amongst the aimless middle classes of western society– the people who have what they need or more, but who have no higher ambition but to joylessly consume. In the wife's case this is unfortunately alcohol. Her daughter has reached puberty but has to cope on her own. (the local boys seem to be behind her in development anyway).

As the daughter, Alicia Fulford-Wierbicki puts in a fine performance, as does Sarah Pierce as the mother. The men are all pretty shapeless with Marton Csokas doing a glowering Russell Crowe number as the mother's lover.

It's a bleak story but well done.

"Rain" adds a striking share to a trilogy of recent films with "Fat Girl (a ma soeur)" and "Girls Can't Swim (Les filles ne savent pas nager)" about young teen girls on vacation Down the Shore with neglectful parents and annoying and sometimes adorable siblings, with each taking a different approach to their sexual exploration.

Based on a novella by Kirsty Gunn, New Zealander writer/director Christine Jeffs makes a powerful debut, capturing what the world of dysfunctional marriage, alcoholism, depression and adultery looks like to a girl trying to figure out how to model her behavior.

Maybe it's that antipodean take on larrikins, but Jeffs more than the other women filmmakers visually shows just how powerful a draw a sexy man is to a rebellious girl and her frustrated mother -- and maybe how unfortunately irresistible they are to him too ("Like mother, like daughter," he knowingly says.).

The patronizing guy in back of me completely disagreed with my interpretation focusing on the girl, instead going on that the movie was really about man's spiritual (and other) impotence causing depression or some such.

The beautiful music was by Neil Finn, with an excellent range of moody pop songs mostly by him, and others such as Lisa Germano, that communicated the girl's thoughts, though I can't tell if they are original to the movie.

I read the book to see if what I think was left a bit unresolved in the movie was in the book as well. The movie well captures the languorous poetry of the book and follows the basic plot, but emphasizes more the competition of the girl vs. the mother differently and the girl's growing pains, while the book stresses the sibling relationship, quite beautifully.

(originally written 5/11/2002)

My friend and I spent the after-movie coffee trying to decide whether Rain was indeed the best New Zealand movie we have seen. An intense, evocative slice of 1970s beach holiday life, there is nothing about it that doesn't work.

This project clearly couldn't have worked or even happened if it weren't for the amazing discovery of the star, the very young Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki. She makes Rain an uncomfortably accurate portrayal of what it's like to be inside an adolescent girl's body and life. Her character, Janey, is twelve-going-on-twenty, experimenting with the power that can come from being a young woman, full of new secrets. Her performance is intense in a deliciously natural way and carries the entire film.

While her character is central, this is not just another coming-of-age story. We also see the complex interactions of her family members and various holiday acquaintances and watch tested loyalties, experiments in love and attraction, and quite a bit of swimming and fishing.

The cinematography is distinctive and excellent, all the other actors are faultless and the soundtrack, by Kiwi icon Neil Finn, is exactly right. Rain is a frighteningly impressive debut by director, Christine Jeffs.

This film was delicious to watch. Some of the cinematography was really striking, as were some of the cinematographic choices, such as the sparing use of very brief black-and-white shots. I also liked the depictions of children at play (one moment in particular: when Jim cavorts in the dimly lit front yard at dusk in semi-slow-mo in a dracula cape, in a sort of scene-change-sideshow-distraction, innocently echoing the ominous tone of the previous scene). The play really rang true, reminding me of my own interactions with my siblings. The relationship between the two children was endearing and a welcome relief from the other very draining relationships in the movie.

I spent most of the film wondering whether a particular event was going to happen, and I felt that the few moments after it did happen near the end were the best of the film, UP UNTIL something else happened that I felt was a little over the top. The former event brought together the relationships that Janey, the young protagonist, had with all of the other characters in such rich, complex, achingly painful ways, it really left me in awe. It was a very strange experience, then, to have the second, over the top event happen not a minute later. I really felt this last event was unnecessary, and it cut me off from fully appreciating the best moment of the film.

So, the first 94 minutes or so were really great, and the last three, while they did cut me off from my greatest moment of admiration, did not detract from the overall greatness of the film.