Movie review: Everything We Loved

A scene from Everything We Loved.

It's difficult to provide a complete assessment of this striking Kiwi feature without engaging in what might seem like - but is not really; the plot point occurs less than 20 minutes in - a major spoiler.

So if you want to see it - and see it you should - completely cold, let your eye skip the next three paragraphs right now. (Start at "The newest fruit ...")

For me, the major improbability that dogs an otherwise assured piece of work is the idea that a mother - any mother, anywhere, ever - would accept as her own someone else's son when (here's the important bit) she knew that the boy concerned had been abducted and that his real mother was inhabiting a panic-stricken hell.

Director and writer Currie seeks to deal with this credibility challenge by having a character tell us that the boy's real mum and dad are not fit parents and, to be sure, the world his two main characters come to create is one fraught with a perfectly plausible insanity occasioned by their own bereavement. But when the film's mother first discovers what happens, her response is one of horror: the process by which she becomes part of the plot's conspiracy is far from convincing and, for me, it remained a fatal flaw.

The newest fruit of the NZ Film Commission's excellent low-budget Escalator project, which has given us Fantail, this festival's Orphans & Kingdoms and Housebound, and Existence, which played in the 2012 festival, Everything We Loved opens on Charlie (Stewart) at home and looking after 5-year-old Tommy (Clarkson).

Gradually, it builds a sense of unease as the plainly loving Charlie is confronted with questions such as such as "Are you my real daddy?" and "Where is Mummy?". A television report about a missing child (the newsreader is Suzy Clarkson, the child actor's real mother) is our first clue as to what happened and when Stewart's wife Angela (Trokenheim) joins them, we join the dots.

Currie deftly constructs the couple's backstory: their past as performing magicians provides plenty of scope for faintly Fellini-esque sequences. It ups the ante further when, behind with the rent, the trio have to go out in public to perform and the film exploits, without ever overdoing it, the fact that they make their living by deceiving people. Yet it's hard not to feel that the film paints itself into something of a narrative corner. There is not enough dramatic or emotional development to set it apart from the routine, and the inevitability of the ending becomes something of a let-down.

All that said, it is an extraordinarily impressive technical achievement that quite belies its chump-change budget. Cinematographer Dave Garbett creates a colour palette that reflects the couple's progressively shrinking world - the cinema seems to become colder with each passing minute. And Stewart and Trokenheim are excellent as a couple sinking deeper into darkness.

The film, which premiered at the film festival on Monday evening, went live on a video-on-demand platform at the same time. That innovative release strategy should assure it the audience it deserves.

Cast:

Brett Stewart, Sia Trokenheim, Ben Clarkson

Director:

Max Currie

Running time:

100 mins

Rating:

PG (adult themes)

Verdict:

Technically assured and superbly acted, but dogged by a singular fatal implausibility.

- TimeOut