The meeting of esteemed Australian novelist Patrick White with assured Australian director Fred Schepisi has paid off in spades with the production of THE EYE OF THE STORM (M).
Adapted by Judy Morris and peopled by a sublime cast, THE EYE OF THE STORM is a magical, tragic tale set in 1972 Sydney.
Siblings Basil (Geoffrey Rush) and Dorothy (Judy Davis) are summoned from their European bases to attend malingering mama, Mrs. Hunter (Charlotte Rampling).
Rush has made a mark on the British stage and been knighted, in spite of his blighted rendition of Lear, whilst Davis has gone through a marred marriage to an Italian prince, now dissolved, with title and small allowance the only legacy of the royal wedding.
Both siblings are battered by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and keen to get their hooks on the outrageous fortune that lays a last breath away in the decaying, declining, yet still dominating dame who is their mother!
Using the reluctant services of their family lawyer Arnold Wyburd (John Gaden), a man long in love with Mrs Hunter, they scheme to place their mother in a society nursing home to expedite her demise.
Panic sets in as the staff sense the impending end of their eccentric world. Most eccentric of the staff is Lotte, a refugee from Nazi Germany who is Mrs. Hunter’s cook and private cabaret act. Helen Morse is sensational in the role making an Uber welcome return to the big screen after a hiatus of a decade or more. Her Lotte alone is worth the price of admission, but wait, there’s more with Alexandra Schepisi as the day nurse, Flora, who plans parenthood with Basil, and Maria Theodorakis as the pious night nurse, Mary.
Robyn Nevin, Jane Menelaus, Billie Brown, Heather Mitchell, Liz Alexander are all in the cast, and there is a wonderful star turn by Colin Friels as a droll pollie with PM aspirations who is also on the lookout for a leg over with Dorothy.
A welcome return to the big screen by Fred Schepisi and a brilliant adaptation by Judy Morris, – best Oz film of the year, and certainly best score by the marvellous Paul Grabowsky.
(c) Richard Cotter
7th September, 2011