COSI
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
COSI, an Australian film which is loosely based on Louis Nowra's experiences as a drama therapist at a mental institution back in the mid 1970s, is short for Mozart's comic opera, COSI FAN TUTTE. At the institution, Nowra had directed several plays with the mental patients cast as the performers.
We therefore meet Lewis (Ben Mendelsohn) who has dropped out of college and is looking for employment in something meaningful to him. Offered a job as director of a play at a mental institution and thinking it will be easy, he accepts. Thus begins the story. Lewis quickly realizes that this will not be the snap job he had pictured.
Dealing with willful mental patients who have their own ideas about how the opera should go, trying his best to make some order out of chaos, Lewis fears for his own sanity but before he quits, he suddenly realizes that he really likes the misfits with whom he is in constant contact and decides to give it his best shot.
Although COSI has many things going for it, such as its director who had directed the very funny THE EFFICIENCY EXPERT, some talented Australian actors such as Ben Mendelsohn (THE EFFICIENCY EXPERT, THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE), Tony Collette (MURIEL'S WEDDING) and EMMA), Barry Otto (STRICTLY BALLROOM) Rachel Griffiths (MURIEL'S WEDDING) and Pamela Rabe (SIRENS) the movie does not quite live up to its potential. Several scenes are quite predictable. Still, it is very funny and certainly worth seeing.
Directed by Mark Joffe.
Rating: 2.5 Bytes
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Ben Hoffman
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