Empire Australasia - 04.2020

VERDICTWeaving is extraordinary in this

moving story of family, friendship, loss and

second chances, although he’s upstaged

at times by the assured performances of

newcomer Luri and Watson.

Weaving is great as Dan — it is impossible

for him to be anything less in his performances

— a man struggling to cope with the past, and

afraid to embrace the future. His scenes with

McElhinney are incredibly powerful.

Luri — a former truck driver who was

discovered in a casting call — is a revelation

as the seemingly genial Sebastian, who is not

necessarily all that he pretends to be. It is a

confident performance that Luri attributes to

Ben Lawrence’s assured guidance. “I did not act

before,” he says, “but the way he was doing things

gave me a lot of confidence. It built me up. Even

things that were a bit difficult, he made it easy

for me.”

And Lawrence was thrilled with the onscreen

chemistry between Luri and Weaving: “Finding

Andrew was something I dreamt about for a

long time. I really wanted that character to be

a non-actor...it was an experiment for me, but

I thought it was going to pay off in a particularly

authentic relationship between those two

people.”

Luri is well-matched by Watson as Anishka

• she exudes strength, compassion and, when
  finally confronted by her husband’s devastating
  secrets, pain and outrage. She shines particularly
  in the intimate, quiet moments that the couple
  share in their tiny flat: a highlight sees her gently
  mocking her husband as she lovingly cuts his
  hair in the kitchen.
  “One minute I was laughing and the next
  minute I was breaking down,” Watson says.
  “There are parts of [the script] that broke my
  heart and I feel like the heartbreak is beautiful,
  too. It’s because of the authentic voice of the
  script. It doesn’t lie. It doesn’t try and be what

it’s not. Again, that’s so rare. It’s rare for a script

to do this so wonderfully.”

The plight of refugees is ever-present in the

film, but not in an overt fashion until the very

final scene when viewers are shown a series

of sobering photos revealing the very human

tragedy of people forced to flee their homelands

through war, famine or natural disaster —

accompanied by the jaunty-yet-weirdly-

appropriateRoad To Nowhereby Talking Heads.

It’s a grim — some might saytoogrim —

ending to what is otherwise a subtle, nuanced,

at-times uplifting look at the concepts of

forgiveness and redemption for past sins.

But it’s powerful nonetheless.

Watson says thatHearts And Bonesis about

“humanity...heartache and loss and life...tragedy.

It’s also a movie about regrowth and rebuilding.

At its core, and I think that’s the final message,

we rebuild. After a tragic situation, you rebuild.

You don’t give up. You create something new and

you acknowledge your past.”DAN LENNARD

VIVARIUM

★★★

OUT 21 MAY / CERT TBC / 98 MINS

DIRECTOR Lorcan Finnegan

CAST Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots,

Jonathan Aris

Director Lorcan Finnegan’s second

feature is a bizarre and often grotesque

parody of human ritual that leans into

artifi ciality. The focus of the horror

lies in the domestic space, as central

couple Gemma (a fi erce Poots) and

Tom (Eisenberg, subverting his usual

nerviness) are given no discernible way

out of a creepy maze of starter homes.

The fi lm doesn’t do quite enough to

move beyond its simple skewering of

the ideal of the nuclear family. The point

is mostly made about halfway through

the fi lm, and the dialogue handed to

Eisenberg and Poots is often superfl uous,

but Vivarium at least partly makes up

for that with a string of unpredictable

set pieces. KC

RADIOACTIVE

★★

OUT 11 JUNE / CERT M / 109 MINS

DIRECTOR Marjane Satrapi

CAST Rosamund Pike, Sam Riley,

Aneurin Barnard

Marie Curie lived her life amid radioactive

fumes, which led to both her historic

achievements as a scientist, and her

ultimate demise, as the chemicals

infected her. Rosamund Pike plays Marie

Curie with spirited, stubborn authority,

but feels like a struggling anchor in a fi lm

plagued by too many unstable elements;

visually, the high frame rate, evoking

nature documentaries, goes to war

against animated montages, bringing

director Marjane Satrapi’s previous

experience with graphic novels to the

fore. Extreme emotion distracts and

distances instead of offering immersion

— leaving the scientist’s achievements

as incredible and impenetrable as they

were before the fi lm began. EK

Top: An overseas assignment turns sour for Dan. Above:

Josie (Hayley McElhinney) hits Dan with life-changing news.

ON SCREEN