1997
Johnny's comments:
Now
I'm moving onto New
Zealand Classics. What
next? Vanuatuan
Classics? Fijian
Classics? I think
there's only ever been
a few Fijian movies.
Anyway... I've been
stockpiling a few New
Zealand movies and
without realising it,
the pile is about
20-30 large, so it's
time to actually doing
something about it.
First
up is the 1997
twentysomething
dramedy Topless Women
Talk About Their Lives
and well the title is
of course misleading,
but it garners
interest. Following
the lives of bunch of
twentysomething
friends living in
Auckland who have
complicated love lives
and such, their world
seems to revolve
around Liz (Danielle
Cormack). When we pick
it up, Liz is 17 weeks
pregnant and has
missed her abortion
appointment, well,
she's missed it by a
week and is now forced
to have the child,
much to her disgust.
It doesn't help that
she refuses to name
the father and strings
along friend and
former fling Neil
(Joel Tobeck) and her
current boyfriend
Geoff (Andrew Binns)
and that doesn't look
like lasting much
longer. Plus, Geoff's
girlfriend Bryony
(Josephine Davison) is
back from overseas and
he'd very much like to
continue seeing her.
Meanwhile, Ant (Ian
Hughes) has just had
his appalling
screenplay made into a
movie in Germany and
is about premiere
locally and it's
suddenly hit him he
might be successful.
Also, Liz's best
friend Prue (Willa
O'Neill) and Mike
(Shimpal Lelisi) have
decided to get married
and are doing so in
his home in Niue. This
is despite Prue
worrying about the
increasingly unstable
Ant. How will they all
survive the year?
Very 90s movie that
was actually began as
a multi-part 3-5
minute TV series that
I remember seeing a
few episodes of back
in the day on SBS (I
think it was before
1997 too). Turned into
a movie when the
makers received
funding (it also shows
in the TV series which
switches from video to
film about halfway
through). And that's
the problem with this
movie. I made the
mistake of watching
the TV series first as
the movie is basically
the last 20 episodes
of the TV series with
some small changes
plus an ending which
wraps up the various
storylines. The
problem is that the
movie starts not
having set up any
characters and we are
put straight into the
chaos and a lot is
left unexplained in
the movie as has been
explained in the TV
series. So, it takes a
while to work things
out because the plot
and characters are
underdeveloped. A
shame really as there
are some good dramatic
and comic moments
throughout including a
very interesting birth
scene. It reminds me a
fair bit of the
Australian movie Love
and Other Catastrophes
although this movie is
far more episodic
because of it's TV
origins, but it's that
'make up the plot in
the days before the
shoot' aesthetic that
works for the movie.
And this helped
particularly when
Danielle Cormack
became pregnant in
real life and the plot
changed completely
(amazing to think that
baby would probably be
20 years-old now).
Anyway, Topless Women
Talk About Their Lives
is better seen as a TV
series than in movie
form.
