The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Features  |  Reviews
Best2012Vote-1000x50

Opal dream

A semi-precious gem
By PETER KEOUGH  |  January 31, 2007
3.0 3.0 Stars
070202_inside_opal
OPAL DREAM: Real imaginary playmates

Peter Cattaneo hit paydirt in 1997 with The Full Monty, a crowd pleaser about blue-collar dreams. He mines a different vein of the same theme here and comes up with a semi-precious gem. Rex (Vince Colosimo), an entrepreneurial family man, dreams of finding “a bit of color” in his dig in an opal-mining community in the Australian Outback. His nine-year-old daughter, the changeling-like Kellyanne (Sapphire Boyce), has dreamed up a pair of imaginary playmates and has forced dad, mom (Jacqueline McKenzie), and older brother Ashmol (Christian Byers) to pretend they’re real too. The two dreams collide in a comic incident with grave consequences: Rex becomes an outcast and is prosecuted as a “ratter” — a poacher on other miners’ claims. And Kellyanne’s pals disappear, leaving her mysteriously ill. A courtroom scene crossing Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and To Kill a Mockingbird follows, but Cattaneo has a keen sense of the difference between kitsch and whimsy, and as in Monty, he knows how to leave an audience feeling good.
Related: The Rocker, Lars and the Real Girl, Spring brakes, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Peter Cattaneo
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/17 ]   "Guys, Gals, and Glitter"  @ Club Café
ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: CORIOLANUS  |  February 16, 2012
    In a line of fascist-style stagings of the Bard from Orson Welles's 1937 black-shirted Julius Caesar to Richard Loncraine's brown-shirted Richard III (1998), Ralph Fiennes sets his lean and hungry take on Shakespeare's tragedy in a mo dern-day war zone, paring the play to a brisk two hours.
  •   REVIEW: SAFE HOUSE  |  February 15, 2012
    Daniel Espinosa's over-edited but engaging spy thriller delves into edgy territory untouched by any of the numerous movies it imitates: it has Brendan Gleeson do an American accent.
  •   REVIEW: THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY  |  February 15, 2012
    The most touching love story and best children's movie in a long time, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of Mary Norton's book The Borrowers employs old-fashioned animation techniques to create a world that is familiar, uncanny, and luminous.
  •   REVIEW: RAMPART  |  February 15, 2012
    The rotten cop flick has become a mini-genre of sorts, a subset of noir, going back at least to Orson Welles's Touch of Evil .
  •   REVIEW: THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012: DOCUMENTARY  |  February 10, 2012
    The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed