LOVE SERENADE (Miramax - 1996) Starring Miranda Otto, Rebecca Frith, George Shevtsov, John Alansu, Jessica Napier Screenplay by Shirley Barrett Produced by Jan Chapman Directed by Shirley Barrett Running time: 101 minutes
*** (out of four stars)
Alternate Rating: B
Note: Some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers. Be forewarned.
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Make no mistake about it, Shirley Barrett's debut feature film, LOVE SERENADE, is truly a strange one. A number of critically acclaimed recent Australian comedies have been lauded for their inventive, offbeat stories -- MURIEL'S WEDDING, THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, STRICTLY BALLROOM -- but the zany LOVE SERENADE stands out even among this eccentric group of films in terms of sheer outlandishness. LOVE SERENADE starts off as simply relatively quirky but becomes increasingly bizarre as the film progresses, and its loopiness will certainly not be for all tastes. Nonetheless, Ms. Barrett's film is generally highly entertaining, with a lot of offbeat humour and some big laughs.
The setting for the film is a fictional Australian backwards hamlet in the middle of nowhere called Sunray, where nothing much ever happens and which time (and technology) seems to have overlooked -- the local one-man radio station is stocked with tunes from the 1970s, like Glen Campbell's "It's A Sin When You Love Somebody", Van McCoy's "The Hustle", Dionne Warwick's "What The World Needs Now Is Love", and Barry White's "Love Serenade". Even worse -- they're on *vinyl*.
Things are about to change in Sunray -- big-shot Ken Sherry (George Shevtzov), a former Brisbane radio disc jockey of some eminence, is headed into town, and things will never be the same for the Hurley sisters, gawky twenty-year old Dimity (Miranda Otto), who spends days riding around town aimlessly on her bicycle and nights waiting tables at an empty Chinese restaurant, and plainly desperate 26-year old Vicki-Ann (Rebecca Frith), who works as a beautician and is seeking someone to replace her last suitor, who befell an unfortunate chainsaw accident. Ken Sherry, who fancies himself a suave casanova (this is established in the film's extremely significant opening scene, as he mouths along with the Barry White tune playing on his car radio, and reinforced in any subsequent scene in which he opens his mouth) could be the man for the job -- his 'celebrity' status delights Vicki-Ann, and she's all agog when he moves in next door. Falling just short of throwing herself at him, Vicki-Ann is consequently aghast when Ken Sherry displays an interest in young Dimity, and the two sisters spar off in a sibling rivalry over the affections of Sunray's new disc jockey, oblivious of his manipulative smarminess and his general indifference to both of them as anything other than conquests.
This does not even begin to indicate just how strange LOVE SERENADE is, yet it would be spoiling the film to describe the odd goings-on in any greater detail. You'd never believe me, anyways.
Suffice it to say that the film's quirkiness is accentuated by the colourful characters which inhabit it, especially when contrasted with the bleak drabness of the town of Sunray. Ms. Barrett perhaps goes a bit *too* far at times in giving her characters little quirks -- painting a simple character like Dimity's foil, Chinese restaurant chef Albert Lee (John Alansu) as a psuedo-philosophizing nudist is stretching it -- but in general proves to be fairly successful; these characters are interesting, entertaining, and eminently watchable.
The best performance in the cast is that by Ms. Otto, who turns in an outstanding comic performance as Dimity. She embraces her character's shy, uncertainty and naivity, assuming awkward, timid body language, and with her sporting a scrunched-up, baffled, slightly-addled look on her face for most of the film, she's a delight to watch.
Mr. Shevtzov is terrific as the sleazy Ken Sherry -- his is a tricky role, for had he not delved unabashedly into his character's smug persona, Ken Sherry would have come off as merely repugnant. As it stands, he still *is* repugnant, of course, but also oddly fascinating and compelling -- it is hard to loathe him and his manipulations of the two female leads, despite the attachment the audience has grown for the Hurley sisters, because his transparency of his actions are so amusing. One watches his mellow faux-worldly on-air psychobabble with a sense of incredulous disbelief, and the airy, laid-back, detatched way in which he impresses himself into the hearts of Dimity and Vicki-Ann is cruel yet strangely bewitching to watch; a particular nice touch is the cool repetition of any questions addressed to him in his suave radio voice. Mr. Shevtzov plunges headfirst into the role without any hint of restraint, and the film is all the better for it.
Ms. Frith is somewhat less successful than her castmates as Vicki-Ann, although she has a very good physical scene where she attempts to shoo away her loitering sister. She is unable to prevent her character from occasionally slipping into caricature, but it should be pointed out that her part is not as well-written as the other two central characters in the film, particularly in LOVE SERENADE's first half. (For instance, an early scene has Vicki-Ann telling Dimity that she should leave new neighbour Ken Sherry alone in peace, for he needs his privacy, and is immediately cuts to Vicki-Ann insistently knocking on Ken Sherry's front door. Heh.)
Ms. Barrett does go overboard with the fish symbolism in LOVE SERENADE, and the film's conclusion, which seems to be intended as a bit of a surprise, ends up being somewhat telegraphed (even moreso if, like I, you're watching Ms. Otto), but this is a remarkably original film. Ms. Barrett won the prestiguous Camera d'Or at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature with LOVE SERENADE, and it is extremely rare that I see such a singularly peculiar film as this one. There is a scene in the film where Dimity is being told by Vicki-Ann that she's odd; the same could be said about this amusing little film.
- Alex Fung
email: aw220@freenet.carleton.ca
web : http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/
--
Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca) | http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aw220/
"God, I loved it. 'I'll send you a copy.' BAM! Bitch went down.
'I'll send you a copy.' BAM! Sid - Superbitch!"
- Rose McGowan, SCREAM
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