Genevieve Lemon Movies
A narcissistic psychopath and neglectful single mother concocts a deadly scheme to sell the family house, and the only thing standing in the way is her still-breathing father in a cynical and serious-minded suburban soap-opera from director Paul Goldman and first-time screenwriter Alice Bell. Kat (Emily Barclay) is a nineteen-year-old single mother whose life revolves around manicures, cell phone conversations, petty crime, and cheap sex. She lives in a typical suburban home in a typical small town, and she has long since grown bored with her vanilla-flavored surroundings. Kat's brother Danny (Laurence Breuls) is currently serving a life sentence for murder, and the dangerously unpredictable hellion is now forced to move in with her father John (Robert Morgan) or face a life of destitution. Despite the fact that she is utterly dependent on her dad, her hatred for him reaches a breaking point when he informs her that he will sever her financial support and turn her child over to social services unless she finds a job. Subsequently unloading her toddler on her latest boyfriend Rusty (Michael Dorman) before embarking on a sex-fueled bender with Danny's decidedly slow-witted friend Kenny (Anthony Hayes), the enraged Kat soon cooks up a scheme to manipulate one of the men in her life to murder her father so she can sell his home, collect the cash, and carry on in her wild ways. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Emily Barclay, Steve Bastoni, (more)
Director Tony Tilse's crime-themed docudrama The Postcard Bandit plunges viewers into the thrilling world of real-life Aussie bandit Brenden James Abbott (Tom Long) who developed an extraordinary to rob banks sans detection, with moves and techniques so suave and swift that they made it virtually impossible for Australian authorities to capture him. Impossible, that is, until Abbott grew just a bit too cocky and started sending the cops "souvenirs" of his heists, then made an unfortunate little slip that gave himself away. Brett Stiller and Matt Le Nevez co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Long, Brett Stiller, (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)
It's said that sex and religion are two subjects that no one can discuss without arguing; writer/director Jane Campion tackles both head-on in this satiric comedy drama. On a trip to India, Australian Ruth (Kate Winslet) has a spiritual awakening and embraces the teachings of a guru named Baba. Back home in Sydney, Ruth's mother and father (Julie Hamilton and Tim Robertson) are appalled to learn that their daughter now answers to the name Nazni and has no intention of returning. Mother visits her daughter in India in hopes of convincing her to come home, but it's not until she suffers a life-threatening asthma attack that Ruth agrees to return for a visit. Mother pretends to arrange a meeting with Ruth's father, who has been ill, and this trick lands Ruth in the clutches of P.J. Waters (Harvey Keitel), an American exit counselor who deprograms members of religious cults. Waters begins to loosen Ruth's belief in Baba's teachings, but P.J. finds himself sexually attracted to Ruth, and in time she allows him to seduce her. Ruth soon turns the tables on P.J., as she discovers that sex allows her to make mincemeat of his long-held beliefs as a macho, misogynist male. Jane's sister Anna Campion, herself a director, co-authored the screenplay; Pam Grier appears in a supporting role as P.J.'s partner and girlfriend. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kate Winslet, Harvey Keitel, (more)
- 1997
In her feature film directorial debut, Samantha Lang offers a subtle and moving psychological portrait of a female friendship and the effects of an unexpected tragedy upon it. Dowdy, tired, middle-aged and sexually frustrated Hester Harper and free-spirited, young, beautiful dancer Katherine are an unlikely pair of friends, but somehow the relationship works. In the prologue the two are seen at a local community dance. Katherine is having too much fun dancing crazily by herself in front of everyone. Hester, who is lame, watches her silently. Tired, she decides it's time to leave and must wrest Katherine away from the crowd. Katherine ignores Hester's protestations and insists on driving the narrow, winding road home. Unfortunately, Katherine isn't paying attention, disaster strikes and the screen goes black. After the credits, the story shows how Katherine and Hester became friends and then roommates. Eventually the story jumps past the beginning incident to chronicle the aftermath of the accident which left a stranger dead. The women decide to dispose of the body in a deep, dry well near their cottage. They return home and discover that someone has stolen the small fortune they'd been saving. Could the thief be the man in the well? While wrestling with the logistics of whether they can or should get him out, cracks appear in their friendship that are only worsened when the two find themselves plagued by supernatural occurrences. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Since the breakup of his marriage, Billy Apples (Max Cullen), the stocky, middle-aged owner of a hardware store in Sydney, Australia, hasn't had much going on in his life. Billy has one hobby, singing with a jazz band in a club in his neighborhood; he knows that he's not much of a vocalist and that his teenage daughter Casey (Rachael Coopes) considers him an embarrassment, especially since she's convinced that he's to blame for her parents' divorce. But late one night, Billy sees several comets dotting the night sky, and something miraculous occurs -- suddenly, Billy is capable of singing like Billie Holiday! While many people are puzzled by this development (Billy himself is near the top of the list), his new sound packs them in at the club, and soon Billy's career as a singer takes off and he signs a recording contract. His ex-wife even suggests that she might give their marriage another try, but success goes to Billy's head and he becomes difficult to get along with; then Billy's voice starts to change back, prior to his appearance in a major music contest. This musical fantasy won the Australian Film Institute award for Best Adapted Score in 1995. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Max Cullen, Kris McQuade, (more)
Writer/director Jane Campion's third feature unearthed emotional undercurrents and churning intensity in the story of a mute woman's rebellion in the recently colonized New Zealand wilderness of Victorian times. Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter), a mute who has willed herself not to speak, and her strong-willed young daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) find themselves in the New Zealand wilderness, with Ada the imported bride of dullard land-grabber Stewart (Sam Neill). Ada immediately takes a dislike to Stewart when he refuses to carry her beloved piano home with them. But Stewart makes a deal with his overseer George Baines (Harvey Keitel) to take the piano off his hands. Attracted to Ada, Baines agrees to return the piano in exchange for a series of piano lessons that become a series of increasingly charged sexual encounters. As pent-up emotions of rage and desire swirl around all three characters, the savage wilderness begins to consume the tiny European enclave. Campion imbues her tale with an over-ripe tactility and a murky, poetic undertow that betray the characters' confined yet overpowering emotions: Ada's buried sensuality, Baines' hidden tenderness, and Stewart's suppressed anger and violence. The story unfolds like a Greek tragedy of the Outback, complete with a Greek chorus of Maori tribesmen and a blithely uncaring natural environment that envelops the characters like an additional player. Campion directs with discreet detachment, observing one character through the glances and squints of another as they peer through wooden slats, airy curtains, and the spaces between a character's fingers. She makes the film immediate and urgent by implicating the audience in characters' gazes. And she guides Hunter to a revelatory performance of silent film majesty. Relying on expressive glances and using body language to convey her soulful depths, Hunter became a modern Lillian Gish and won an Oscar for her performance, as did Paquin and Campion for her screenplay. Campion achieved something rare in contemporary cinema: a poetry of expression told in the form of an off-center melodrama. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, (more)
- 1989
"Luigi" (David Rappaport) is a Cockney immigrant to Australia, whose job as maitre d' in a high-toned Italian restaurant requires that he take on an ethnic monniker and phony accent. Over time, he has become the confidante of a trio of his customer, yuppie women, all of them friends with each other, who have just lost substantial amounts of money during a sudden drop in the stock market in 1987. Each of them is propelled by this into a series of humorous adventures, including a "rebirthing" session, and an attempted murder (using tainted jam), which they recount to Luigi and to each other over the course of the film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wendy Hughes, Sandy Gore, (more)
New Zealand-born filmmaker Jane Campion directs the darkly humorous family drama Sweetie. Thin and mousy Kay (Karen Colson) works in a factory and lives a dreary existence with her well-meaning boyfriend, Louis (Tom Lycos). One day, her sister Dawn (Genevieve Lemon) arrives with her so-called manager, Bob (Michael Lake). Nicknamed Sweetie, Dawn is everything Kay is not: boisterous, impulsive, and overweight. Kay is consumed with uptight phobias, while Dawn hangs on to her unrealistic childhood dreams of show business. Meanwhile, their parents, Gordon (Jon Darling) and Flo (Dorothy Barry), are involved in a strange separation. Kay, Louis, and Gordon trick Dawn so they can visit Flo at a ranch in the Australian outback. Everyone gets together back at the family home where Dawn pulls an immature stunt, exposing the psychological realities of the situation. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Genevieve Lemon, Karen Colston, (more)
