ScreenWize

More than anything else, Beautiful Kate is a beautiful film. Sensitively adapted for the screen from an American novel by Newton Thornburg, Rachel Ward – who also makes her directing debut – creates and sustains an intriguing, tender and delicate story, slowly peeling away the layers of a family’s past to reveal dark matter. Ward is wise enough, though, to know how to fill what would otherwise be a difficult journey with light: sparkling dialogue, exquisite camerawork, superbly observed performances, and – surprisingly uncommon for Australian films - a credible sense of redemption for more than one character.

Weary writer Ned (Ben Mendelsohn) makes the long journey back to his rural childhood home, bringing with him his playful, sexy new girlfriend Toni (Maeve Dermody). A bloody nighttime encounter with a kangaroo on a dirt road signals the tone of the terrain ahead. This isn’t going to be easy. On the surface it seems that the problem is Ned’s father Bruce (Bryan Brown), an irascible man incapable of showing anything other than contempt for his son, and who is being nursed through the final stages of life by his youngest daughter Sally (Rachel Griffiths). But as Ned makes his way around the crumbling property, raking over old objects and ignoring the petulant antics of Toni, memories from his childhood flood back. We discover from these his sister Kate (Sophie Lowe) and older brother Clifford (Josh McFarlane). Fused with a warm glow, the memories of adolescence are both warm and difficult, and Ned somehow knows he has to work through them to be able to both deal with his father and move on in his own emotional life.

It took Ward three years to craft her screenplay, and it shows – this is a superior script that rarely falters in its delicate exploration of a damaged family and complex social taboos. As Ned, a casual man with a precipitous past to overcome, Mendelsohn gives the best performance of his career – and is strongly supported by Dermody, Griffiths and Lowe who create three completely different – but equally absorbing and strong women. Much credit too must go to Andrew Commis’ elegant cinematography, Ian Jobson’s carefully crafted production design, and Ward’s choice of music – all of which help her create a new and richer kind of Australian sensibility on screen.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon