THE PRICE OF MILK
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Lot 47 Director: Harry Sinclair Writer: Harry Sinclair Cast: Danielle Cormack, Karl Urban, Willa O'Neill, Michael Lawrence, Rangi Motu
People still marry largely on the basis of the chemistry they feel during their courtship period. In other words, hormones rule. But if hormonal changes go southward at a fortunately gradual pace, the initial half-crazed passion of two lovers is bound to fade somewhat after a year or two--which is good, because if people felt toward each other the way they did while first discovering each other's bodies, nothing much of a mundane nature could get done.
With "The Price of Milk," New Zealand filmmaker Harry Sinclair ("Topless Women Talk About their Lives") investigates a similar phenomenon, which is, how do you know that the person you are about to marry really and truly loves you in the first place? The obvious answer is to test that love. In medieval times, the nobility would prove their affection by drinking fair maiden's bathwater out of her slipper, but in New Zealand, the pixies are relied on more frequently. In this fairy tale, in fact, Auckland-born director Sinclair positions a couple, Rob (Karl Urban) and Lucinda (Danielle Cormack) amid the rolling hills of his country, pretty much a unit unto themselves except for their heads of dairy cows and an agoraphobic dog named Nigel (Pirate).
Rob is a natural as a dairy farmer, possessing $400,000NZ or cows who reply to his greeting of "good morning" every day with a chorus of thunderous moos. His girl friend, Lucinda, appreciates Rob's talent with the animals but despite their passion under the sheets (or in this case under a colorful quilt), she wonders whether his affection toward her is at least as much as his attractive to the bovine. As quickly as you can say "Taumarunui," Lucinda literally runs into the fabulous Auntie (Rangi Motu), who because of a lack of heating in the boonies needs as many quilt blankets as her golf-crazed nephews can produce. When Auntie's Maori nephews steal the blanket in the dead of night, Lucinda is required by Auntie to swap her most valuable possession to get the comforter back. The tradeoff leads to a severance of her relationship with Rob, who is seduced by Lucinda's so- called best friend Drosophila (Willa O'Neill).
Despite the unobtrusive but effective presence of an enchanted soundtrack produced by the Moscow State Orchestra, this "Milk" is frightfully skimmed. Though Danielle Cormack sports long, curly locks giving her the appearance of a Rapunzel. and conveys her naivete by widening her eyes as though as student of Rodney Dangerfield, she is unappealingly masculine. One can easily see what the comely Karl Urban sees in the competition. Though Willa O'Neill's Drosophila drives a wreck of a car, she has far more charm and allure. The real trouble, though, is in the script, which comes across as though Mr. Sinclair simply allowed the ensemble to improvise and settled for the first take in each scene. If it's true that only a Western urban audience can appreciate the humor of the highly metropolitan Woody Allen, then perhaps logically enough the waggery allegedly present in a pastoral "The Price of Milk" became shipwrecked somewhere in the Tasman Sea.
Not Rated. Running time: 87 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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