Blessed (2009/I)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Ana Kokkinos

Writers:

Andrew Bovell (written by)
Patricia Cornelius (writer)

Release Date:

10 September 2009 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Seven lost children wander the night streets while their mothers await their return home. |

Plot Keywords:

One Word Title

Cast

Deborra-Lee Furness	...	Tanya
Miranda Otto	...	Bianca
Frances O'Connor	...	Rhonda
Harrison Gilbertson	...	Daniel
Sophie Lowe	...	Katrina
Tasma Walton	...	Gail
Ferdinand Hoang	...	Chris
Victoria Haralabidou	...	Gina
Eva Lazzaro	...	Stacey
Costas Kilias
Dennis Kreusler	...	Train Time Announcer (voice)
Monica Maughan	...	Laurel Parker
Reef Ireland	...	Orton
Eamon Farren	...	Roo
Samuel Ross Forbes Wright	...	Joe Franklin (voice)
Wayne Blair	...	James Parker
Kadriye Secgin	...	Couple in Love
Anastasia Baboussouras	...	Trisha
Andrew Lyons	...	Pool player
Kellie Jones	...	Constable Clark
Danielle McAlpine	...	Prostitute
Van Rune Scott	...	Dj
Amanda Gaye McDonald	...	Prostitute
Chanara Hyde	...	Working Girl

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:MA (2009) | Australia:MA

Filming Locations:

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company:

Blessed Film Productions

Trivia:

This is the second time Monica Maughan has played Wayne Blair's (adoptive) mother.

Not Kokkinos' best film

Acclaimed director Kokkinos' fourth feature (after ONLY THE BRAVE, HEAD ON and THE BOOK OF REVELATION) is her weakest. The film's premise – an examination of the relationships between "working class" mothers and their children from both perspectives – carries much potential, but what we're offered here is little more than thinly-drawn caricatures of people living in Melbourne's western suburbs. At the risk of being unfair, the film bears an uneasy exploitative value, as if we're watching the product of the cultural elite's imagination of people they would hardly know. Such a cynical response is a pity: the award-winning writers have been responsible for works such as LANTANA (from Bovell's play SPEAKING IN TONGUES), STRICTLY BALLROOM (Bovell's script), HEAD ON (Bovell's script, from Tsiolkas' novel LOADED), DEAD EUROPE and THE SLAP (Tsiolkas' other novels) and gong-winning plays THE SPOOK, SALT CREEK MURDERS, SWEETOWN and FEVER among others.

BLESSED is trapped by the one-dimensionality of its characters into a cluttered cliché-driven story which tries too hard to present the gamut of the "tragedy" of the daily lives of the "working class" in one go. The result is a constant stream of emotional hits which ultimately lose their power through the characters' superficiality. One wonders whether the residents of Westmeadows really need the pity afforded them by Kokkinos and the writers. Rather than empathy, the class bias which infects this film invites offence. Presumably the play, which was awarded Best Play at the Queensland Literary Awards as well as two AWGIEs and the Jill Blewitt Award, was better.