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  Film: Little Fish September 11, 2005 Reporter : Peter Thompson Director: Rowan Woods  Little Fish may turn out to be the most important film in a year that's looking like a dramatic turnaround for Australian movies. Local film production is still mortally crippled by under-investment, the legacy of years of deliberate political neglect. But films are being made and many are capitalising on the international success of Australian and New Zealand actors. Alongside Cate Blanchett in Little Fish are Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving and Martin Henderson, together with Noni Hazlehurst, Joel Tobeck, Lisa McCune and more. If all this glitter tempts you, you'll discover a film that's full of surprises. It will, quite simply, knock your socks off.The first shock is to see Cate Blanchett inhabiting an anonymous face in the crowd. Tracy Heart is a 30-something single woman with little left in the way of illusions. Her life is not without pleasure. She loves exercising in the local pool but she keeps herself tightly in check. In her own words, she swims, she works, she goes home and she sleeps. And then, in the course of a few hours, her past comes rushing back to overwhelm her. ROWAN WOODS: "It's intentionally almost a sort of a Shakespearean story, it's an attempt to show this ordinary suburban woman in a life or death situation, [to sort of] create a story with Tracy Heart, the character that Cate Blanchett plays, which is a story and a life that is almost Shakespearean in its dangers and its risks." The past that Tracy has tried to bury is one of addiction. She's been clean for four years but her stepfather Lionel, who she loves almost more than anyone, is still using heroin. And her brother Ray is hooked on speed. For their mother Janelle, it's taken everything she has to keep it together, although she refuses to let Lionel back into her life.  ROWAN WOODS: "The threat of disintegration and collapse in this family and to a certain extent the heroic struggle of the central character in overcoming the problems that beset her is real. It's real, you know? It's not the stuff of losers, it's the stuff of ordinary families, ordinary suburban families. Not the working class poor, not the silly rich, it's the stuff of every single family I know. There is a family member, there is a beloved friend who is beset by the life and death struggle to do with drug addiction and getting free of it."Rowan Woods will be known to you as the director of The Boys, that scorching portrait of homicidal male violence that stunned audiences seven years ago. Since then he's directed a mass of television drama, so he's never been far from the camera. But Little Fish has also taken years of development. It's a much lighter, more hopeful story than The Boys but it's just as intense and rich in authentic detail. "I could have easily made Little Fish without the stars. I could have. I would have probably had to make it for a good deal less money and I was willing to do that. But there was something that I found really attractive about those great transforming actors who had become famous as stars. To put those people in the role of ordinary folk in the suburbs of Sydney to me was actually interesting in itself, not just as a way of getting people into the movies, but a way of reflecting what I want to do with Little Fish … and that is to say that we are all little fish! It doesn't matter how famous or successful we are, we are all little fish." The biggest challenge for Tracy is the reappearance of her old lover Jonny — that's American actor Dustin Nguyen — who was once her dealer and her fellow addict. She's just not ready to risk loving him again. If you've never been close to anyone hooked on anything, be it cigarettes, alcohol, prescription drugs or even television, you probably won't be able to relate to Little Fish. But it's not just about addiction. It's really about courage and the love that fuels it. ROWAN WOODS: "I want a film [that doesn't do that], that offers real hope and offers a realistic reflection of who we are and how we behave and still rocks you and moves you like cinema should."  Peter Thompson: Little Fish is written by Jacqueline Perske, who is probably best known for The Secret Life of Us. Her script moves to a dramatic climax but it's the characters of Little Fish you remember. The actors and their director have brought such veracity to them that the film has the complexity and unpredictability of real life. The key to it is the commitment of the filmmakers to a very specific time and place, namely Western Sydney, in and around Cabramatta. But as with all the best drama, that sets it free to become a universal story.For movie session times, visit: ninemsn's Movie Guide |
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