On the afternoon after Christmas, parolee Chris (Richard Green) is preparing lunch for his brother's ex-wife Donna (Tammy Anderson) and her daughter Brook (Misty Sparrow). Tagging along is Dave (Syd Brisbane), Donna's new boyfriend. Owen (Stuart Clark), a former jail mate of Chris', arrives with an agonising secret about Dave's own criminal past. The situation escalates as we are drawn into the compelling story of a desperate father faced with an explosive revelation that could tear his family apart.
Special Agent Matti
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the suburbs...
Boxing Day is a hot, dry, dusty holiday in a lower socio-economic suburb that makes Struggle Street™ look like Sylvania Waters (probably ™ too). This is a house where every day is a rough day, where every time is a hard time. Cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, violence, theft, assault, shouting, fighting, fists through the plasterboard, car bodies up on concrete blocks, dead grass on the lawn, fast food on the table... makes you glad you're not a povvo.
On top of that you can add a father who's spent most of his life doing crime or doing the time, a daughter who's barely known her father because he's never been around and a mother who always picks the wrong man. Happy families. At Christmastime. Christmas brings out the worst in people because (if you've ever seen a horror film, you'll understand) they are trapped in an enclosed space with a bunch of people they might or might get along with in short bursts but it goes on too long and everyone has had a month of stress building up to the holidays and it's getting really hot and everyone had to get up early to open the presents (or stay up late to go to Midnight Mass) and anyone who drinks drinks too much and all the skeletons get dragged out of the closet and you can't leave because you'll never hear the end of it and all the emotions start bouncing off the walls (just like the Big Brother House) and before you know it someone's pulling out a gun.
And then, on the next day...
The Australia, crime, thriller movie Boxing Day is directed by Kriv Stenders and stars Richard Green, Tammy Anderson, Syd Brisbane.
MA 15+ (Strong themes and violence, strong drug use and coarse language)
81 minutes (1:21 hours)
DVD rental: 21 August 2008
