Our next film takes place on:
Tuesday 6th November
Little Theatre
7.45pm

Little Fish

Rowan Woods/Australia/2005/114 minutes

A thirtysomething former heroin addict struggles to rebuild her life and avoid being pulled back into her junkie past. Australian drama starring Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Sam Neill.

You may not guess it from her uncannily versatile track record, from Elizabeth through to her Oscar-winning performance as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator , but Cate Blanchett is Australian.

One of the many refreshing things about Rowan Woods' engrossing Little Fish , is that it gives a pre-eminent actresses a chance to play a character who at least partly shares her own history. Not to suggest that the real Blanchett shares any of the same dilemmas as her Tracy Heart, a former junkie struggling to set up on her own in Sydney's 'Little Saigon'; but by playing a woman nearer to her own background, Blanchett's Heart reveals a little more of her own soul than any - admittedly superb - portrayal of royalty, English or Hollywood, ever could.

Little Fish - the title ostensibly refers to tiny fish-shaped drug sachets, but obviously references those struggling to stay afloat in the swirling currents of a big city - is especially adept at showing how the habits of addictive behaviour can long outlast any actual drug-taking.

Refused a bank loan to start a new video rental store, Tracy slips immediately back into her old habits of secrecy and subterfuge, unable to share the truth even with her former scoring partners, ex-Aussie Rules star Lionel (Weaving), her ne'er-do-well amputee brother Ray (Henderson) or former Vietnamese-Australian boyfriend Jonny (Nguyen), just back in town with high-flying business aspirations. When Ray and Jonny unwisely get embroiled in a scheme to con local underworld chief Bradley 'The Jockey' Thompson (Neill, sporting a vicious comb-over), a former lover and supplier of Lionel, Tracy isn't the only little fish likely to get reeled in by the false allure of a brighter future.

The generous, overlapping storylines are well handled, although the late shift into crime melodrama feels somewhat half-hearted after the low-key, naturalistic build-up. What helps the film stand out is its more oblique approach to detailing narrative. Sydney's Cabramatta or 'Little Saigon' suburb is worlds away from traditional Bondi Beach clichés, redolent of a vibrant, multi-cultural Australia that cinematographer Danny Ruhlmann's striking imagery examines in all its contradictions.

Coming after his harrowing, auspicious 1998 feature The Boys , Woods is clearly a director with viewpoint and attitude, capable of inspiring actors to take chances. Neill, Weaving, Henderson and of course Blanchett respond with some of their finest, least typical work and it's great to see such successful Antipodean talent, big fish in their own filmmaking pool, explore the depths that their surface Hollywood projects usually skate over.

Verdict
Thoroughly involving character study that shows another side of both its Sydney locations and a top-notch cast.

Channel4

Trivia

Screenwriter Jacqueline Perske is also Mrs Rowan Woods.

Please visit http://www.chesterfilmfans.co.uk/mailing_list/news_071104.htm for an online version of this issue.