Praise

Two Brisbane slackers--an apathetic asthmatic and a sex-obsessed girl with a horrible case of eczema--meet, live together for a while, and eventually split up in John Curran's 1998 grimly observant, decidedly depressing adaptation of Andrew McGahan's celebrated Australian “grunge” novel. Blandly handsome Peter Fenton plays Gordon, a hard-drinking ex-clerk who shacks up with the sexually voracious Cynthia (Sacha Horler). There's no attempt to explain or psychoanalyze the couple (despite the fact that the story is periodically overlaid with Gordon's narration); they're simply presented as damaged, hopeless people who use each other for a time (inevitably a pregnancy and an abortion are part of the mix) and then drift apart. The lead performances are convincing, Curran is adept at evoking an atmosphere of sodden despair and aimlessness, and the film is often visually striking. Still, it's likely to provoke in the viewer the same sense of profound ennui that appears to infect the characters; at one point Gordon refers to Cynthia as exhausting, and after a time you may feel that the word admirably describes them both. Despite its title, the picture is deserving of only qualified praise. An optional purchase. (F. Swietek)