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The well

Threat advisory: Guarded - General risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Love, death, deception. Who knows what lies beneath the surface?

Based on the novel by Elizabeth Jolley (who, completely irrelevantly, was a tutor of mine at university).

From the day she brings Katherine (Miranda Otto) home to the isolated farm where she lives alone with her difficult father, Hester's life changes. Taken on as house help, Katherine soon comes to mean something more to Hester (Pamela Rafe). As their relationship develops, something long repressed in Hester is released as she discovers the giddy pleasures of friendship.

When her father dies, Hester takes control of the family farm and money. The two women spend money greedily. To ensure a continuing flow of cash Hester sells the farm and the two women go to live in a small cottage Hester retains on the property. With loads of money, much of it hidden in the cottage, they are now free to continue their idyll of treats and dreaming, until the night when Katherine has a fateful accident.

Cinematic intelligence sources

Awards and film festivals:

Cannes Film Festival 1997: Official selection

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Australia. The outback. Nutters. Lies. Nothing to write home about.

That really says it all, but I suppose that I'll have to justify it. The scenery is dull, depressing and bland. Up until the accident, which doesn't happen until the 2nd half of the film, there is nothing but exposition. Katherine moves to the country (although she is a bigtime city chick and we don't know why she would do this), Hester is bored and they all get along badly. Boring as all get out.

After the accident things are more interesting as the two women grow progressively more insane (more than they already were) but now instead of two women being bored, it's two women being nutty. The problem is that this should actually be a 30 minute short rather than a 102 minute feature. Then it would be an relatively interesting look at two psycho bitches lost in the outback and it would be over before we got bored.

On the plus side, Miranda and Pamela put in wonderfully Australian performances in what is (mostly) a wonderfully Australian-flavoured film. The night shots are cheated (you know: there's a permanent full moon even in the middle of a thunderstorm) which adds a strong touch of Americanism, but during the day it's definitely Australia.

What more can be said? I am sure that there are people who will like it, but there are 5 billion people on this planet, so anything could happen. Feel free to give this one a miss.

Security censorship classification

M (Adult themes, low level coarse language)

Surveillance time

102 minutes (1:42 hours)

Not for public release in Australia before date

Film: Undated August 1999