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Soft Fruit
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From an
audience’s point of view, the problem with many contemporary Australian films
is simply this: nothing leaps off the screen and grabs the viewer. The
characters are neither lovable nor detestable; the story is not compelling; the
style has no energy.
Soft Fruit, the first feature by acclaimed
short filmmaker Christina Andreef (The
Gap, 1993), is a characteristically over-ambitious, over-crowded debut. It
is full of elements familiar from Australian cinema of the late ‘90s: the
depressed, suburban setting; a dash of multiculturalist spice; wacky hi-jinx in
slightly desperate search of comic relief.
But the
characters are arresting, and the actors who incarnate them are uniformly
appealing. Three sisters – Josie (Genevieve Lemon), Vera (Alicia Talbot), and
Nadia (Sacha Horler) – gather around their ill mother, Patsy (Jeanie Drynan).
Their wayward brother, Bo (Russell Dykstra), would gladly join them if their
father, Vic (Linal Haft), ever allowed him through the door.
This is a
certified dysfunctional family. Andreef (who also wrote the script) hesitates
between turning this bunch into either a cheery, TV sitcom brigade or a Gothic
hotbed of violence, frustration and unfinished business.
So we never
really come to understand why all three sisters are overweight, why Vic is so
feared by all, or why Patsy didn’t let her dreams lead her on adventures long
ago. But it’s easy to enjoy just about everything happening in the here and
now: the women's weight-loss contest; Bo’s eloquent, oddball wit; the little
escapes from home that each character contrives.
Andreef
inherits more than a few stylistic problems from her mentor (and here Executive
Producer) Jane
Campion. Soft Fruit tends to become a string of individual scenes, moments and vignettes.
Heightened details or self-consciously striking images (in slow motion or with
an unusual texture) punctuate the generally naturalistic flow at regular
intervals.
But is the
film ever more than the sum of these parts? One longs for an overall,
satisfying shape to proceedings – a sturdy play of rhymes and echo effects from
one scene to another; or some narrative pattern that gives extra meaning and
resonance to the comparative states and moods of the characters.
On every
level, it is instructive to compare Soft
Fruit with Festen (The Celebration, 1998), also about a
family reunion. Where Thomas Vinterberg evokes a palpable sense of both space
(the family home) and time (from dusk to dawn), Andreef never really finds a structure
to support and express her story.
As a
result, Soft Fruit is a formless,
meandering movie. Andreef toys with too many ideas and too many character arcs
– to the detriment, at times, of clarity and impact.
On the
other hand, it is undeniably a film with a lot of heart, an openness of
attitude, and a generous, democratic spirit. Andreef (unlike Ana Kokkinos)
resists making the nuclear family an emblem of all that is repressive,
traumatic and stultifying in society.
There is
more than a touch of melancholy in Soft
Fruit, but it manages in the end – despite its flaws and uncertainties – to
be a surprisingly warm and affirming testament.
© Adrian Martin October 1999 |
