The book was a favorite in our house, and the locales were my childhood home area. While I thought Richard Roxburgh followed Raimond Gaita's book pretty faithfully; that the cinematography was splendid; and that there were fine acting performances by Kodi Smit-McPhee and Eric Bana, overall it came up short for me.
The reason: the dialogue was simply too sparse. I could be corrected, but I can't recall any scene where more than two, perhaps three very short sentences were exchanged. Throughout, people hardly spoke - the result being that it relied too heavily on languorous, meaningful looks and pregnant silences. And I agree with a criticism voiced elsewhere on this film's site, that this is a hallmark of Australian films, an over-used indulgence.
How I suffered that watching Rowan Woods's endless lingering facials of Cate Blanchett in 'Little Fish' last year. Its a great face and she's a great actress - but the treatment just drove me to distraction in that case.Boring! Returning to 'Romulus, My Father,' it's just a personal view, but I thought some selective voice-over narration by the boy Raimond would have assisted the film's sense of movement a great deal, filled some of the gaps, added depth, and assisted an uninitiated viewer's appreciation of the themes,personalities and relationships. At least it would have given some more human voice to a very human story.
In summary, I felt it was not a bad film - that it came close to being very good. But it's flawed, and again in a way that so many Australian cinema releases are.
The reason: the dialogue was simply too sparse. I could be corrected, but I can't recall any scene where more than two, perhaps three very short sentences were exchanged. Throughout, people hardly spoke - the result being that it relied too heavily on languorous, meaningful looks and pregnant silences. And I agree with a criticism voiced elsewhere on this film's site, that this is a hallmark of Australian films, an over-used indulgence.
How I suffered that watching Rowan Woods's endless lingering facials of Cate Blanchett in 'Little Fish' last year. Its a great face and she's a great actress - but the treatment just drove me to distraction in that case.Boring! Returning to 'Romulus, My Father,' it's just a personal view, but I thought some selective voice-over narration by the boy Raimond would have assisted the film's sense of movement a great deal, filled some of the gaps, added depth, and assisted an uninitiated viewer's appreciation of the themes,personalities and relationships. At least it would have given some more human voice to a very human story.
In summary, I felt it was not a bad film - that it came close to being very good. But it's flawed, and again in a way that so many Australian cinema releases are.