I just watched Stranded at a film festival, and I liked it. It was convincing and engaging from start to finish, and managed (which I was worried about) to round itself off very well by the end.
I watched it because of Emily Browning, whose ethereal looks are just amazing. I'm sure she has a fabulous career ahead of her. In this film, I thought she would be playing the lead character, Claudia. After all, Browning is 17, as Claudia seems to be. But Browning was the little sister, Penny, looking no older than 14 at most. After my initial disappointment at this, I accepted Emma Lung's character and performance as very captivating and touching.
It's basically a story about Australian "white trash"; a poor family with depressed parents, of which the mother killed herself a year earlier. So the father and his two teenage daughters try to get by, all the while shouting at each other and being in a lot of emotional pain. Some local Christian do-gooders want to relieve the father and help take care of the girls, but they are politely told off (hell, they would have creeped me out, too!) - until another couple of young kids are parked in the family by a mother that can't/won't take care of them. These accidentally kill a beloved canary, and so are promptly sent packing with the Christians, which makes for an extremely funny scene. A while later they come back to perform Christian songs like trained monkeys...
Of course, that's just one subplot of several. I'm amazed how much ground was covered in less than an hour; several times I thought the movie would have some kind of open ending that didn't actually finish the story. But it did come to a satisfying end, where the father pulled himself together and starting to get things under control. I feel this film could easily be expanded to a feature length movie.
For what it was - a slice of life tale from a tragedy-struck dysfunctional family - Stranded was very well made. Kudos to all involved.
8 out of 10.
I watched it because of Emily Browning, whose ethereal looks are just amazing. I'm sure she has a fabulous career ahead of her. In this film, I thought she would be playing the lead character, Claudia. After all, Browning is 17, as Claudia seems to be. But Browning was the little sister, Penny, looking no older than 14 at most. After my initial disappointment at this, I accepted Emma Lung's character and performance as very captivating and touching.
It's basically a story about Australian "white trash"; a poor family with depressed parents, of which the mother killed herself a year earlier. So the father and his two teenage daughters try to get by, all the while shouting at each other and being in a lot of emotional pain. Some local Christian do-gooders want to relieve the father and help take care of the girls, but they are politely told off (hell, they would have creeped me out, too!) - until another couple of young kids are parked in the family by a mother that can't/won't take care of them. These accidentally kill a beloved canary, and so are promptly sent packing with the Christians, which makes for an extremely funny scene. A while later they come back to perform Christian songs like trained monkeys...
Of course, that's just one subplot of several. I'm amazed how much ground was covered in less than an hour; several times I thought the movie would have some kind of open ending that didn't actually finish the story. But it did come to a satisfying end, where the father pulled himself together and starting to get things under control. I feel this film could easily be expanded to a feature length movie.
For what it was - a slice of life tale from a tragedy-struck dysfunctional family - Stranded was very well made. Kudos to all involved.
8 out of 10.
