The true story follows two years in the lives of two school age girls in 1950's New Zealand. Both isolated but for different reasons they find a mutual bond through the construction of a fantasy world. The intensity of this bond is considered unbecoming and so the girl's families try to force more normal behaviour. As one might expect, the girls rebel.
I had the thought towards the end of the film that it has a Shakesperian tragic element. If you squint you can even overlay Macbeth onto one of the girls and Lady Macbeth on the other. The set up is joyous but contains the flaws of each of the two; Ambition for Macbeth and hubris for Lady Macbeth. The combination of these two leas down a path that becomes increasingly dark.
The story is told with much effort to make you feel very stifled and and trapped. Small cramped rooms, lost of close shots where the camera has to pan to follow the conversation, lurid underlit scenes and heavy but not excessive use of a narrative in the form of one of the girl's diary entries. All of this helps us to empathise with the girls who as children have solutions and understandings which are naieve and excessive. There is then a sort of symmetry with the application of force by the parents who don't understand the girls relationship and try to apply (what now appear to be) the heavy handed methods of the age. The final evolution of these pressures is the strongly foreshadowed and grisly conclusion.
This was Kate Winslet's first film and she did quite well, but in the end the stand out performance was of the main girl Melanie Lynskey. An actor who I don't know if I have seen since, but had just the right look for the part. (Looking on IMDB she has done lots of little things, but nothing big.)
Anyway, A nice film that had me emotionally engaged right to the end, which punched me in the gut with a good succinct payload and left it at that.
3 1/2 STARS
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