Maslin Beach

1996, DVD quality

Johnny's comments:

Maslin Beach is a 1996 slice-of-life comedy set over a day at a nudist beach. Simon (Michael Allen) and Marcie (Eliza Lovell) head for their regular outing to Maslin Beach but their relationship is in a real flat patch. Marcie hates going to the beach and never takes off her bathing suit while Simon is wondering if the grass is greener elsewhere. Gail (Bonnie-Jaye Lawrence) goes to the beach with her friends Paula (Zara Collins) and Jennifer (Jennifer Ross) and is desperate for love, clinging to a necklace her grandmother gave her that she wore when she found her husband. But Gail's hope for love is running thin, not helped by a sleazy beachgoer who wants to pay her for sex and an overly-attentive young boy. Then she spots Simon, who is re-evaluating his relationship with the philosophical ice cream driver Ben (Gary Waddell) and she decides to take a leap. Meanwhile, Kevin (John Doherty) makes his move of Marcie, who may finally leave Simon. Also around the beach, numerous couples and more do their own evaluating of their relationships while getting a little sun on Maslin Beach.

Mostly boring look at life on a nudist beach that never really finds an interesting hook beyond most of the cast performing nude. Most of the stories are similar sounding relationship dramas that get more than a bit repetitive which isn't great for a movie that is only 75 minutes long. The two main stories go missing for a fair portion of the movie and lose consistency over time and then these stories are hastily resolved despite Simon not even knowing of Gail existence until the final minutes of the movie. There are a number of short vignettes that either make obvious observations or go on forever and the comedy is pretty limited. At times the movie plays more like a soap opera than a comedy and not a very interesting one. It's interesting that after a while of everyone being naked that it becomes barely noticeable like it's just another clothing choice. This is probably because very little is sexualised in the movie which takes away that context. Although I will say that there's nothing more depressing than a sad man with his dick hanging out. A consequence of most of the actors being amateurs and virtual unknowns is that no-one really stands out and no-one is really given the time to shine, which is probably a blessing that the actors are only given a limited amount of time. The best you can say about Maslin Beach is that at least there are very few sleazy moments in the movie and any sleaziness is treated with some disdain from the people it's directed towards. But the movie just isn't interesting at all.

Most of the actors in the movie were amateurs and didn't do much beyond this movie save for a few. Gary Waddell is a fairly well-known character actor still going around and was very good in another Adelaide-made movie The King Is Dead (even that is 10 years old now, Christ where does the time go). Eliza Lovell turns up every once in a while, recently in the ABC drama Stateless. She's one of the few actresses who didn't get nude in the movie. Interesting, she has done a nude scene in a movie made around the same time, Kiss Or Kill, where she was nude in a sex tape.

As I said above, the American DVD (I don't think the movie got a DVD release in Australia) wasn't the best but at least it's on DVD. It's still pretty watchable and the movie is incredibly bright. And while there's was plenty to cap, I found it easier than last week's movie Belinda to cap, well until the encoding problems. Anyway. it's finally done, another big one ticked off.

Various women in film clips (identified below)

Madeleine James

Bonnie Jaye Lawrence

Alison Sclander

Charmaine Lyle

Chelsea Stokell

Di Williams

Irena Westbrook

Kate Jenkin

Leylah Bond

Rachel Feary

Tracey Korsten

Zara Collins and Jennifer Ross