Sacha Horler Movies
Preoccupation with disasters and a growing sense of mortality threaten to derail the growing relationship between the witness of a train accident and the reporter sent to interview her in this daring drama from emerging Australian filmmaker Sarah Watt. As the weekend draws near, three troubled souls find themselves faced with pivotal, potentially life-changing events. Though the death of her father still looms heavily in her mind, Meryl (Justine Clark) is forced to cut short her bereavement in order to focus on a work-related deadline. While reporter Nick (William McInnes) awaits the prognosis after being informed that he has testicular cancer, his photographer Andy (Anthony Hayes) is preoccupied with his girlfriend's unplanned pregnancy. When a train crashes and Meryl is the sole witness to the horrifying event, Nick and Andy are sent to interview her, sparking an unusual affair between the grieving witness and the troubled reporter. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William McInnes, Justine Clarke, (more)
- 2003
Australian writer/director Kathryn Millard makes her feature-length debut with the drama Travelling Light. Set in the Southern Australian town of Adelaide during the 1970s, the film is concerned with a group of bored teenagers. Leanne Ferris (Pia Miranda) lives in the suburbs with her parents, Betty (Heather Mitchell) and Don (Marshall Napier), while her sister Bronwyn (Sacha Horler) has already gotten married. Leanne spends her time with aspiring actress Debra (Anna Torv) and next-door neighbor Gary (Tim Draxl). The friends are soon introduced to a different lifestyle when stranger Lou Bonetti (Brett Stiller) blows into town claiming to be an American beat poet. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pia Miranda, Sacha Horler, (more)
- 2003
Determined to locate Crichton (Ben Browder) and to figure out the precious wormhole knowledge, Scarran captain Jenek (Jason Clarke) aggressively interrogates his prisoner Aeryn (Claudia Black). Upon discovering that Aeryn is pregnant, the Scarrans exhibit a fascination bordering on exultation. Meanwhile, Crichton and Scorpius (Wayne Pygram), having forged an uneasy alliance, conduct a frenzied search for Aeryn -- cutting a swatch of death and devastation along the way. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2002
A contentious romantic relationship was at the core of the Australian comedy-drama series CrashBurn. Catherine McClements and Aaron Blabey starred as a pair of lovers who quickly degenerated into combatants as the series wore on. The series was created by Deb Cox and Andrew Knight, who also penned many of the 13 episodes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 2001
- R
Most people fall in love and get married, but one man does it the other way around in this romantic comedy from Australia. Harvey (Hugo Weaving) is a private detective who derives the bulk of his work from unhappily married people wanting to know if their spouses are being unfaithful. Harvey finds this work depressing and wishes he could quit to devote himself to writing crime fiction. Harvey's career has also given him a rather jaundiced view of romance, which is unfortunately confirmed when he's hired to keep tabs on a college professor and discovers he's having an affair with one of his students -- who also happens to be Harvey's fiancée. Harvey's best friend is a publishing executive named Ethan (David Wenham), who is happily married to Miriam (Rebecca Frith). Or that's what Harvey thinks; he soon learns the truth when Ethan confesses he's been having a passionate affair with Katia (Natalia Novikova), a beautiful woman from Russia. Katia's visa is about to expire, and Ethan is desperate to keep her from going back to Russia; the easiest way to allow her to stay in Australia would be to marry her, but Ethan doesn't want to divorce Miriam just yet. Instead, Ethan offers to make a deal with Harvey -- Ethan will pay him a large amount of money if he'd be willing to wed Katia. While Harvey is not enthusiastic about the idea, the money would allow him to stay home and write, so he reluctantly agrees. But after a few weeks of marriage, Harvey finds himself falling in love with his wife, and he begins looking for a way to steal her away from Ethan. Russian Doll won the prize for Best Original Screenplay at the 2000 Australian Film Institute Awards. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hugo Weaving, Natalya Novikova, (more)
- 2000
Babe: Pig in the City (1998) screenwriter Mark Lamprell makes his directorial debut with this understated drama about a middle-aged woman who is looking to reinvent her life. Frances Regina Aileen Nano Kennedy, AKA Frank Ryan (Sinead Cusack) is a devoutly Catholic widow with two grown children and a few grandchildren. She is also bored to tears with her life. Meanwhile, her college-aged son David (Matthew Newton) is utterly smitten with Jenny (Rose Byrne), the beautiful girlfriend of his buddy Mick (Nicholas Bishop). When Frank decides to take art courses at the same university that her son attends, David is unenthusiastic. Moreover, so is her crusty professor Mortlock (Sam Neil), who believes that older students take places from younger ones. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sinéad Cusack
A con man discovers there is something he can't sell -- namely, a sour-voiced singer he's trying to mold into a star -- in this bittersweet comedy about the outer fringes of show business. Joey Grasso (Salvatore Coco) is an almost pathologically confident man who has just been released from prison after doing time for selling a phony cure for cellulite. Joey lives with his current girlfriend, Bonita (Sacha Horler), who is confined to a wheelchair due to an auto accident, though her father is convinced Joey is only interested in her for the $1 million settlement Bonita is due to receive. One day, at a motivational seminar, Joey makes the acquaintance of Nikki (Nikki Bennett), the daughter of popular nightclub performer Marty Raye (Carter Edwards). Nikki confesses to Joey that she wants more than anything to make it big as a singer, and Joey signs on as her manager, fast-talking a reluctant Bonita into bankrolling Nikki's bid for stardom. However, Nikki isn't a terribly good singer, and is a bit unstable to boot; after an audition for record producer Phil Wehner (Jon English) ends in disaster, Joey discovers just how steep an uphill climb he has in selling Nikki to the public. Walk the Talk was the second feature written and directed by Shirley Barrett, whose debut, Love Serenade, earned her the Camera d'Or at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Salvatore Coco, Sacha Horler, (more)
- 1999
- R
An Australian family with more than its share of eccentricities comes together and tries to set aside their differences in the comic drama Soft Fruit. Patsy (Jeannie Drynan) is the mother of four grown children who has learned she's dying of cancer. While her husband Vic (Linal Haft) is ambivalent about Patsy's condition, her kids are concerned enough to all visit her, marking the first time in 15 years the entire family has been under one roof. Josie (Genevieve Lemon) arrives from the United States with her Australian accent gone and two children in tow. Nadia (Sacha Horler), a single mother since her recent divorce, comes by with her son, but keeps sneaking off for assignations with her ex-husband. Vera (Alicia Talbot), who lives close by, is a nurse who is more single than she'd like to be. And Bo (Russell Dykstra) hangs out with a biker gang when he's not in jail; he's been released on special parole to visit his mother due to her condition. With the family together for a change, the sisters look after their mother, Bo sleeps in a storage shed, and Vic uses the fruit trees in the yard for target practice. Mom, however, has some ideas of her own about how she'd like to spend her final days. Soft Fruit marked the directorial debut of Christina Andreef, who previously served as an assistant to Jane Campion; Campion was executive producer for this project. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeanie Drynan, Linal Haft, (more)
Praise is a love story about a man and a woman, both of whom have low self-esteem, and another woman from the man's past. Obsessive Cynthia suffers from a skin disorder and an insatiable desire for men. She sees something special in Gordon, who is twenty-five, unemployed, a chain smoker and asthmatic. She invites him to a party where he is the only guest. After much alcohol, grass, Scrabble, and conversation, they make love. But just as Gordon is ready to lose himself in this new experience, his old love Rachel appears. His body now belongs to Cynthia, but Rachel still has his soul. In the meantime, Gordon's lungs are collapsing. In his first film, Australian director John J. Curran examines human frailties with insight. Praise was screened as part of the Panorama section of the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Fenton, Sacha Horler, (more)
