Little Fish (or big fish in a small pond?)
AFI award nominations have been announced, and “Little Fish” has been nominated for 13 awards. This movie features Cate Blanchett as a reformed heroin addict trying to get her life together. Also in it are Hugo Weaving (almost unrecognisable), Sam Neill (are there any movies he isn’t in?) and Noni Hazlehurst.
I saw the movie several weeks ago and it was pretty good, especially the performances. I thought that the story sort of drifted a bit, and the movie seemed more a collection of scenes rather than a coherent and flowing story.
I thought much the same about previous best picture “Somersault” - beautifully filmed, well acted, but where’s the story? (Little Fish had much more of a story than Somersault though).
Is it enough to have just a pretty performance piece? Is that part of the problem with Australian movies?
Actually this year’s crop of award nominees is quite strong, unlike the last few years. Other nominees, none of which I’ve seen yet, include “Look Both Ways”, “The Proposition”, and “Oyster Farmer”. Of these, the only one I’m interested to see is “The Proposition” and thats driven by my like for Nick Cave’s work - he wrote the script.
