Movie review: Healing

Don Hany plays an Iranian prisoner who confronts his demons in Healing.

Films that allow the possibility that a man might wrestle with real feelings are thin on the ground, so the flaws in this Australian feature - a tendency towards treacly sentiment; an overly lush score; and an excessive running time - are balanced by the emotional generosity of its central idea.

Director Monahan (The Interview; Peaches), who co-wrote the occasionally plodding screenplay, based the central premise on fact: a programme in which low-risk prisoners in Victoria worked on rehabilitating injured birds of prey in a local sanctuary.

Weaving plays a case-worker at Won Wron, a prison without walls in the countryside, who takes charge of a new inmate, a sullen and simmering Iranian called Victor (Hany). Admitting him to the raptor programme is the beginning of a long rehabilitation.

The arc of the story is predictable and it is predictably handled, as Victor confronts the demons of his past, including a son who has disowned him. And the screenplay milks for all its worth the symbolic potential of birds with broken wings learning to fly free; some scenes are driven by cinematic rather than narrative logic.

The prison kingpin (Hayes) is more plot device than character, too.

But Weaving, his experience showing in a calm, steady performance, and Hany generate real chemistry and there are many moments of real force. Andrew Lesnie, the Oscar-winning cinematographer from the Rings and Hobbit films, is equally at home evoking the beauty of the Australian bush and capturing the essence of the human and avian stars.

Watch the trailer for Healing here:

Cast: Hugo Weaving, Don Hany, Robert Taylor, Xavier Samuel, Justine Clarke, Laura Brent, Anthony Hayes Director: Craig Monahan
Running time: 119 mins Rating: M (offensive language)
Verdict: Lush, occasionally treacly, but often powerful redemption fable.

- TimeOut