DEEP WATER

Stars: Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, Tracy Letts, Grace Jenkins, Dash Mihook, Lil Rey Howley, Rachel Blanchard, Kristen Connelly, Jacob Elordi, Brendan Miller and Finn Wittrock
Writers: Zach Helm and Sam Levinson; based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith.
Director: Adrian Lyne 

Rating: ★ ★ ½

Deep Water is the fourth film starring Ben Affleck and his belle du jour, and none of them have been very good. In 2000, his love for the pre-Goop entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow led to the ill-fitting romance Bounce; as the miscast lead in Daredevil (2003), he made his missus Jennifer Garner do all the work; then, the infamous Gigli (also, 2003), a mega-dud in which the off-screen hots that he had for Jennifer Lopez somehow became a turgid, chemistry-free pairing in one of Hollywood’s biggest bombs.  

In his latest melding of the personal and professional, Affleck stars with now ex-girlfriend Ana De Armas, who was on a roll of spirited, sexy types when she shot this and No Time to Die a few years back (both, pre-Knives Out, a much better vehicle for her talents). Ben plays Vic, the cuckolded husband to Ana’s libidinous wife, Melinda; they have an arrangement that allows her to indulge with younger, fitter men than her hulking, surly husband, and she flaunts it at every opportunity. Most of the first half of the film is her drunkenly pashing strangers at parties while he watches on, blank-faced and increasingly agitated.

But there’s a dark cloud hanging over their upmarket Louisiana suburb - the unsolved murder of a young man, one of many who had been openly intimate (is that a thing?) with Melinda. Everybody kinda thinks Vic did it, but mostly turn the other cheek. Vic doesn’t really play it down - in fact, he frightens off Melinda’s latest conquest, blonde dufus Brendan Miller, by reminding him he’s the number one suspect in the murder of her last shag. Then, the death toll rises - piano player Jacob Elordi drowns, despite a very well-defined upper chest and arms, and goody-two-shoes hunk Finn Wittrock makes the mistake of going for a long drive with Vic.

Vic is a millionaire military-drone inventor, giving the film a streak of irony that never really plays out (he tortures himself by watching her, and all the town is watching him, while his toys watch the world). In the family mix is moppet daughter Trixie, played by Grace Jenkins giving a great ‘creepy kid’ performance (is she in on it with her dad??). And, to top it all off, Vic has a creepy hothouse out back where he breeds hundreds of snails that may or may not do his murderous bidding for him. Oh boy…  

Deep Water is the first film in 20 years for British director Adrian Lyne, a passion project adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel that has gone through umpteen false starts and several studio regimes. He last directed Diane Lane to an Oscar nomination for Unfaithful (2002), and, for two decades prior, crafted some of Hollywood’s most sexually-charged dramas - Foxes (1980) Flashdance (1983), 9½ Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993) and Lolita (1997). He was the go-to guy for manipulative relationship dynamics, gender politics, the dark heart of contemporary American marriage and frank sexuality, the likes of which few mainstream directors would covet.

Ultimately Deep Water is an unfocussed, occasionally confusing drama, which must rile Lyne, who would have seen the dramatic potential of the murky morality in Vic and Melinda’s life at some point in the project’s 20-year journey to the screen. His best films intellectualise the juicy plotting of your average airport novel; Deep Water just feels like an airport novel. 

It’s not without its watchable moments, most involving Ben and Ana striving for inclusion in the ‘married co-stars’ club alongside Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in their Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? prime, and tanking spectacularly. Deep Water is not Razzie-terrible, it’s just mildly OK, which is even more disappointing.

THE ADAM PROJECT

Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Zoe Saldana, Walter Skobell, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Alex Mallari Jr. and Catherine Keener.
Writers: Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin.
Director: Shawn Levy

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

At the risk of putting offside all the theoretical physicists who read Screen-Space, time travel is stupid, can’t exist, doesn’t work…except in the movies. So movies can make up whatever rules they want about time travel, and that’s fine by me, as long as it forges its own logical path and, in doing so, is entertaining.

Which brings us to The Adam Project, the latest high-concept action/comedy/thriller to draw from the Ryan Reynold’s charm and sarcasm trough like it’s a bottomless resource. This Netflix blockbuster is the latest pairing of Reynolds and director Shawn Levy, who last pulled off this critic’s favourite Hollywood hit of 2021, Free Guy.

In 2050, a 40-ish Adam is a pilot, who steals a ship so that he can make the jump to 2018, stop his dad Louis (Mark Rufalo) from inventing a hard drive that makes time travel possible and foil his colleague Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) from betraying their goals for her own personal gain. But 40-ish Adam punches in 2022 instead of 2018 and finds himself face-to-face with his 12 year-old self (Walter Skobell), a smart mouth mini-Reynolds who is coping with the sudden death of his dad by making life hard for his mum, Ellie (Jennifer Garner).

Banding together because they share the DNA code that overrides his starship's security, the starship that will carry him back to the future, Adam 2050 and Adam 2022 pair up with love interest Zoe Saldana (future-Adam's wife Laura, who travelled back previously to make sure...oh, never mind) to derail villainy.  

Like Free Guy, The Adam Project takes a convoluted fantasy premise and turns it into an engaging, exciting romp with more effortless likability and heart than one should expect from stuff like this. Which is all on Reynolds, who somehow combines a Jimmy Stewart warmth with a Burt Reynolds aloofness to pull off a rather unique leading man type - he’s still the handsome, funny movie star who projects larger-than-life to us, but he also connects to audiences through empathy and emotion. Tom Hanks did it in Splash; Jim Carrey did it in The Truman Show. Reynolds has it in spades.

The first half is pure ‘80s-era Amblin-inspired set-up and adventure, and it’s the best part of the film. The second half gets clunkier, a bit too special effects-y and loses touch with its characters in favour of some heavy-handed plot resolution. But it plays out nicely, recovering that deft storytelling touch and sleight-of-hand human emotion that sneaks up on you when all the time travel malarkey is cleansed from the narrative.

DEADLY CUTS

Stars: Angeline Ball, Erika Roe, Lauren Larkin, Shauna Higgins, Aidan McArdle, Victoria Smurfit, Thommas Kane Byrne, Aaron Edo and Ian-Lloyd Anderson.
Writer/Director: Rachel Carey

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Life is pretty shite for the women in Pigslingtown, and especially shite for the lasses of the Deadly Cuts Hair Salon. This Irish working class enclave is ruled over by a gang of misogynistic bullies, violent scumbags who extort money from the local businesses, crippling an already struggling sector, and the four plucky gals find themselves in the crosshairs (the puns just write themselves!).

Erika Roe plays Stacey, the 2IC of the salon, a twenty-something with grand dreams of taking on Ireland’s best stylists at the AAHHair Show and turning around the shop’s fortunes. Her scissor sisters include the boss, Michelle (the still-stunning Angeline Ball, who most will remember as the blonde back-up singer in Alan Parker’s The Commitments); fiery redhead Gemma (Lauren Larkin); and, the timid but primed for a big heroic moment, Chantelle (Shauna Higgins).

One evening, brutal gang leader Deano (a truly terrifying Ian-Lloyd Anderson) pushes the four friends too far and…well, let’s just say the town of Pigslingtown doesn’t have a gang problem any more. The path to hair show glory and a new destiny seems assured for the women of Deadly Cuts, if they can keep a secret even as the webcams of FabTV follow their every move.

In her feature debut, writer/director Rachel Carey shows a lovely eye for character and crisp ear for working-class banter, but struggles with the tone of her film. Shifting gears from aspirational, feel-good drama to bawdy girl-power ode to smalltown murder black-comedy, Deadly Cuts is never all those things in the single scene. It also wants to be a little bit of a piss-take of the hair stylist hierarchy and affectatious twats that anoint themselves industry leaders, which it does sporadically but without any incisive focus.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of fun to be had in just spending time with the four friends. The chemistry between the actresses, with Roe out front as the group’s heart-and-soul and Ball pulling focus like a true movie star every time she’s on-screen, negates the film’s other shortcomings. Be warned, though, that a) a couple of acts of violence are staged with alarming detail, and b) no fecking quarter is given in its embrace of the Oirish brogue. I understood about 60% of the dialogue, so thickly accented were the characterisations.

DEADLY CUTS is in limited release in Ausstralian and New Zealand cinemas from March 17 through Rialto Distribution.

STUDIO 666

Stars: Dave Grohl, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Rami Jaffee, Chris Shiflett, Nate Mandell, Will Forte, Jeff Garlin, Jenna Ortega, Whitney Cummings, Jason Trost and Marti Matulis.
Writer: Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes, based on a story by Dave Grohl
Director: BJ McDonnell

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Foo Fighter fans get the 80s-style horror-comedy they’ve been screaming for Dave Grohl to make since NEVER with Studio 666. Yes, it’s a real movie and a pretty good one, as far as ‘possessed recording studio massacre’ movies go, and it’s in Australian cinemas for a limited time before heading to streaming, where you can watch it with mates between bong hits, as it should be seen.

The Foo-eys have a contractually obliged 10th album due and, no matter how much foul-mouthed record company CEO Jeff Garlin yells at them, they can’t get inspired to write some songs. So Garlin sets them up at a secluded mansion in Encino, hoping the long history of hits that have emanated from the site will rev up the group. But the mansion is home to more than just music history; it is a portal to demonic terror and soon Grohl is having nightmares about red-eyed entities, growing a gnarly set of fangs and killing bandmates in the most ridiculously gruesome way possible.

Everyone’s having fun, unburdened by any expectation that musicians need to be actors (there’s Will Forte, Whitney Cummings and, briefly, Jenna Ortega pulling acting duty). Mature-age men Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, and Rami Jaffee are asked to channel ‘stupid teenagers’ in pulling off this lark, none more so the Grohl himself, who’s a funny, fierce leading man.

On the scale of ‘Rock Star Vanity Projects’, with The Beatles’ A Hard Days Night at one end and Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer at the other, Studio 666 falls somewhere in the middle, which’ll be good enough for the band’s fans. Gorehounds will dig the R-rated splatter, too; it’s all directed by BJ McDonnell, who last did the very bloody Hatchet III, which feels about right.

CYRANO

Stars: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Mendelsohn, Bashir Salahuddin and Monica Dolan.
Writer: Erica Schmidt
Director: Joe Wright

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

Director Joe Wright does ‘soaring lit-based romance’ like few others. He made Atonement - the last film to really make me gulpy-sob - as well as gorgeous-looking and emotion-filled reworkings of Pride & Prejudice and Anna Karenina. These are the stories that engage his artistry and passion for storytelling like none of his other films. He did Hanna, The Soloist, Darkest Hour - all fine films but works that felt like a hired gun was at the helm.

Cyrano may be the best Joe Wright film yet. It is, of course, a reworking of Edmond Rostand’s romantic classic Cyrano de Bergerac, a favourite amongst literary academics but probably best known to modern movie audiences as the inspiration for the beloved 1987 Steve Martin film, Roxanne. In 2022, Wright has worked with writer Erica Schmidt to create a 17th century Parisian spin on the story of the swordsman/poet who pines for the beautiful Roxanne but who doubts she would fall for someone as physically unappealing as he.

Instead, she falls for one of Cyrano’s new regiment, the guard Christian, a strapping specimen but not the shiniest sword in the battalion. So Cyrano agrees to be his voice - mostly in letters, but also literally on occasion - to help his beloved Roxanne find true love, even if it means his own longings must go unrequited.

In a year of big, brassy, lushly orchestral musicals, like West Side Story and In the Heights, the original music, composed by The National and the lyrics, written by Matt Berninger and Carin Besse, is often understated to the point of being almost lost in Wright’s lavish production. But the songbook works as a subtle add-on to the characters in Cyrano, not a grand flourish in a sing-for-singing’s sake kind of way. Some of the film’s deepest emotions are found in the repeated refrains of the central tune, ‘Madly’, or in Roxanne’s declaration of her depth and strength, ‘I Need More’.

The Cyrano of legend was cursed with a big honker, but in Wright’s version he is played by Peter Dinklage, the little person star of Game of Thrones (and that unforgettable cameo in Elf). Dinklage is married to Schmidt, and she crafted the script to suit not only her husband’s dwarfism but also his towering talent and on-screen charisma. His performance as the forlorn, faultlessly romantic Cyrano is arguably the greatest ever screen incarnation of the figure, putting him ahead of such actors as Gerard Depardieu, Jose Ferrer and Christopher Plummer.

Dinklage’s scenes with his Roxanne (the luminous, spirited Haley Bennett) are both lovely and heartbreaking; as Christian, Kelvin Harrison Jr brings depth to a role that is very often underserved in adaptations of the text. And in fourth billing is one Ben Mendehlson, doing that thing he’s been doing for the best part of a decade now, taking a small villainous role and making every frame of film unforgettable.

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

Stars: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Jacob Latimore, Moe Dunford, Nell Hudson, Jessica Allain, Olwen Fouéré and Alice Krige.
Writer: Chris Thomas Devlin
Director: David Blue Garcia

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Leatherface returns in what is being touted as the “spiritual sequel” to the late Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterpiece. Don’t do the math; if you do, that makes the chainsaw-wielding bad guy a very spry 70 or thereabouts. Given some of the muscular action and physical dexterity he exhibits in offing the latest cast of annoying twenty-somethings, life as a disgusting shut-in clearly has it’s perks.

The pot-smoking Kombi kids of the first film have been replaced by upwardly-mobile, idealistic millennials whose vision is to rejuvenate the decrepit ghosttown of Harlow and turn it into the next Portland. Dante (Jacob Littlemore), his gf Ruth (Nell Hudson) and driven capitalist Melody (Sarah Yarkin) have the plan; Melody’s sister Lila (Elsie Fisher), in the grip of PTSD having survived a school shooting, is along for the ride. The group land in Harlow just ahead of a busload of douche-y investors, every one obviously lining up to be blade fodder.

The horror kick starts in the most 2022 of ways - a dispute over title deed. Dante and Melody claim ownership of a spooky crumbling house, but find a dusty old broad (Alice Krige, leaning into the scenery teeth-first) and her ‘son’ (you know who) still in the premises. Things go bad, storm clouds roll in, nighttime descends…you can see where this is going.

The Chainsaw Massacre films have never been at the cutting edge of social commentary, so bravo to this latest version for a few swipes at the handheld-device generation. No, it's the splatter that matters in the TCM films and Leatherface ‘22 offers plenty of inventive dismembering. Key player is Fede Alvarez, who directed the awesome Evil Dead remake and the first Don’t Breathe and here guides the gore as producer.

Slasher films count on outwardly intelligent people putting themselves in patently dangerous situations, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre has more than its fair share of “Oh my God, what an idiot!” moments. That’s part of the fun, and for those of us who adore the saw, there’s lots of fun to be had here.

UNCHARTED

Stars: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle and Steven Waddington.
Writers: Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway.
Director: Ruben Fleischer

Rating: ★ ½ 

I vaguely knew Uncharted was a successful video game series and that fans have been frothing at the mouth over a bigscreen reworking of the adventures of petty crim Nathan Drake and his recruiter, sly ol’ treasure hunter Victor ‘Sully’ Sullivan. I do know that they haven’t been pining for this film, it’s fair to say.   

It’s been 20 years since Drake (Spidey himself, Tom Holland) has seen his older brother Sam, so when Sully (Mark Wahlberg) promises both a huge payday and some hope for the bros to reunite, Drake is all in. Two bejewelled amulets are the keys to a series of adventures, first in the tunnels below San Sebastian, where they are joined by fellow adventurer Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), then to the tropical island resting place of the bounty they seek - all this while, dodging ruthless billionaire Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas) and the blade-wielding Braddock (Tati Gabrielle).

Wikipedia describes the gameplay as “jumping, swimming, climbing, swinging from ropes, shooting, combat, puzzle solving, driving, boat riding, and other acrobatic actions.” In that regard, the film has people doing all those things. But there is little connective tissue between the character and their actions; like the game, it feels like Drake and Sully just have to go through this bit to get to that bit. Holland and Wahlberg are repeatedly made to look like not-quite the action film buddies they were paid to be.

An obvious template is being employed here to transfer the platform game format into a movie, or at least back into a movie; the game was apparently a riff on globe-hopping adventures like Raiders of the Lost Ark and National Treasure. That partially explains the ‘copy-of-a-copy’ dullness, a film so relentlessly derivative, so cut from the shopworn, tatty cloth of dozens of better films, it never finds its own reason-for-being. Instead, it just creaks and groans towards its CGI-cartoon conclusion. 

Ultimately I could care less about this plodding dirge of a film but I do want to point out the most dispiriting thing about this whole mess. Every villain that is trying to derail our white-guy heroes is a) a woman, and/or b) a ‘foreigner’. It is wildly ironic that the only references to the action-adventure films of the past that Uncharted mimics with any skill are the ugliest, most outdated elements.

BELFAST

Stars: Jude Hill, Jamie Dornan, Catriona Balfe, Ciaran Hinds, Lewis McCaskie, Lara McDonnell and Judi Dench.
Writer/Director: Kenneth Branagh.

Rating: ★ ★ ½

Director Kenneth Branagh claims that his latest work is a recollection of moments from his life as a wee lad on the streets of late 60s Belfast. Sectarian conflict is on the rise; Catholic and Protestant rioters are tearing apart the terrace homes and small businesses of the poor working class communities. Barbed wire and curfews and late night patrols are altering the fabric of tight-knit pockets of friends and family.

And ‘family’ is what Branagh wants you to believe his film is really all about. The strapping father (Jamie Dornan) who heads off every week to London to find work; the stoic mum (Outlander star Catriona Balfe), who is slowly unravelling as she tries to raise two boys and run a household by herself; and the wise old grandparents (Ciaran Hinds and Dame Judi Dench), who are good for a cuppa and some wisdom when called upon.

We experience this world through the eyes of an adorable innocent named Buddy (Jude Hill), who is going through all the torment one must as a 10 y.o. 1969 Belfast - getting the cute classmate to notice you; struggling with the fire-and-brimstone message of the local pastor; facing off against Catholic rioters; dealing with a family dynamic that is clearly strained.

It’s a bit insufferable that Kenneth Branagh recalls himself as such a perfectly lovable little boy, but inflated self-perception has never been a problem for Branagh. And that bloated sense of one’s own worth courses through Belfast, which wants to be a loving ode to family unity in a time of turmoil but feels more like Branagh impressing himself with the most strained camera angle to make his black-&-white photography look good. This is a ‘60s-set coming-of-age story seen through the lens of a ‘90s Guess jeans commercial.

I had the same reaction a few years back when everyone was frothing on about Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, another impenetrably arty monochrome “masterpiece” that also wanted to recall the simple beauty of family love and that ultimately, like Belfast, failed to do so. Branagh, like Cuaron, seems less interested in recalling key moments from his working class upbringing and more obsessed with making sure you never forget his new film.

Late in the story, as their world is imploding and they are faced with moving to London, Buddy’s parents commandeer a dance hall and belt out a version of ‘Everlasting Love’. It is a totally incongruous sequence that reeks of manipulation and undoes the thin connective tissue of all the drama that went before it. But, damn, if it doesn’t look beautiful. 

And that’s how I’ll remember Belfast. Not as a dissection of social upheaval as seen through the eyes of a boy whose innocence is dismantling, or a domestic drama about the new wave of immigrants forced from their traditional homes - both themes hinted at but left unexplored by Branagh. I’ll remember Belfast as a twee collection of Irish cliches and stunningly photographed dirt and bricks.

THE REQUIN

Stars: Alicia Silverstone, James Tupper, Deirdre O’Connell, Jennifer Mudge, Kha Mai and Danny Chung.
Writer/Director: Le-Van Kiet

Rating: ★ ★ ½

If you’re a stickler for detail (for the sake of this logically care-free film, I hope you’re not), the title should read ‘Le Requin’ - the full French pronunciation of ‘The Shark’. But why give an American film a French title? Or half-a-French title, for that matter? And why call it The Requin or Le Requin or The Shark at all…and then not shark-up for over an hour?

Which is not to imply that married couple Jaelyn (Alicia Silverstone) and Kyle (James Tupper) spend the first 60-odd minutes just being touristy (although they do that, too); they are recovering from their own watery tragedy, having lost a child during a home birth. Jaelyn has serious PTSD, especially on or near water, leading Kyle at one point to surmise that their seaside, tropical island suite was maybe not the best idea for a getaway-from-it-all destination.

It is off-season, which means monsoons, and soon their floating villa is ripped from its moorings and cast out to sea. While the dread of deep-sea predation is always present (unlike any form of rescue craft), it is the elements that pose the greatest threat. Jaelyn and Kyle go through the various stages of existential turmoil one would experience on a raft that was once your bedroom floor - panic, mostly, some bleeding, then accidentally setting fire to your bedroom-raft.

Tupper does all he needs to do on-screen as the wounded husband, but it is 90s it-girl Silverstone who leaves nothing on the acting table as Jaelyn. In partnership with her unmistakable stunt stand-in, she gets to go head-to-snout with sharks of various sizes in water depths prone to change mid-shot. Silverstone brings physicality and a great set of lungs to the more brutal moments, while capturing the grief and sadness of Jaelyn’s emotional ruin in small but effective scenes. It’s good seeing her back in a lead role, even if she gives more than the material deserves.

The alpha predator at the centre of the action is Carcharodon carcharias, or The Great White Shark. They don’t typically live in the tropical waters off the Vietnamese coast (tiger sharks and various breeds of reef sharks populate these regions), but we’ll let that slide. Spielberg did such a job on the shark’s image back in ‘75, flashing a close-up of that black eye (”like a doll’s eye”) is still the perfect cinematic shorthand for terror. The film does little else to earn it’s own sense of dread (unlike 2003’s Open Water or 2010’s The Reef) or provide the creature with some dimensionality (like 2016’s The Shallows), but as the latest sharksploitation riff, it works well enough.          

The Requin is Vietnamese director Le Van-Kiet dipping his toe (no pun intended) into the Hollywood industrial complex, after making a big splash (meant that one) with his 2019 festival hit, Furie, which was a great film. Aside from a few stock footage inserts of Hanoi streets and underwater wonderlands, his drama is staged in the tank space and against the green-screens of Universal Studios in Orlando. The ‘uncanny valley’ downside of CGI used to create that with which we are familiar takes a chunk out of key moments of suspense - the shark footage waivers from fleetingly convincing to…less so - but by minute 80, Kiet knows that his audience is in for les penny, in for les pound.

DREAMS OF PAPER & INK

Stars: Tamara Lee Bailey, William Servinis, Neal Bosanquet, Marlene Magee, Emily Rok, Christopher Jordan, Sorcha Johnson and Anisa Mahama.
Writer/director: Glenn Triggs

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

An ageing author undertakes a melancholy journey through his earliest memories of love in Dreams of Paper & Ink, the latest work of independent sector inspiration from writer-director Glenn Triggs. A dialogue-free recounting of the first pangs of romance as recalled through the lens of age and wisdom, Triggs has crafted a film that draws upon his audience’s own experiences as much as it does his lead characters. Minus the spoken word, Dreams of Paper & Ink evokes the universal joys and pains of that first heartfelt connection.

The latest book from author Wade Gibson (Neal Bosanquet) is a fanciful medieval adventure that stumbles upon release, so much so that his publisher asks for something more personal - an account of that first time that love took hold of his heart. The assignment sends the author into a melancholy tailspin, as he commits to truthfully recalling how his younger self (William Servinis) fell for and wooed the free-spirited Kina (Tamara Lee Bailey). 

Triggs stages the older Wade’s writing process by placing the author and his typewriter in the very moment with his recollections. This creates a kind of ‘greek chorus’ effect, providing the audience with an emotional barometer, a gauge of the old man’s reactions to his own immaturity and romantic missteps. Initially, there is an overarching “Youth is wasted on the young” theme to Wade’s observations, but soon he comes to realise that it was his selfish flaws that extinguished in Kina the very essence that drew him to her.

The three leads are ideally cast, none more so than Bailey as Kina. Her joyous first onscreen impression, longings for deeper connection with young Wade and heartbreaking recognition that the magic has dissolved are conveyed with profundity by the young actress, who shares a convincing chemistry, in times both good and bad, with an equally terrific Servinis. As the older Wade, Bosanquet is wonderful in projecting the sense of personal revelation his journey comes to represent. As Wade’s wife, Marlene Magee is lovely as the woman that has come to represent love as a truly shared journey.    

‘Dialogue-free’ does not mean wordless. The lyrics of evocative songs and the prose of notes written between lovers take on added emphasis, both narratively and emotionally. Music and image convey both the thrall of that initial connection and the chilliness of love’s final hours. Triggs sets himself a true storytelling challenge, and pulls it off with a skill he’s honed in his past genre works (Cinemaphobia, 2009; 41, 2012; Apocalyptic, 2014; The Comet Kids, 2016). His first ‘serious drama’, Dreams of Paper and Ink confirms his status as one of the most interesting and accomplished independent voices in Australian film.