Herald rating: * *
Running time: 89 mins
In stores: Today
Review: Ewan McDonald
In the 70s Bunnie (Danielle Cormack) is a hippie protesting the Vietnam war. After dropping acid, she goes blind by staring at the sun.
Fortunately she has already laid eyes on Geoff (Kevin Smith), a troubled Vietnam vet who's come
home in a wheelchair, and when she meets him again in rehab, they decide to marry.
They have a baby they call Baby — "It has a certain ring to it," says Geoff — and live unhappily ever after next door to Tony (Joel Tobeck). The final character is Bunnie's friend Cassandra (Amber Sainsbury). One day Baby disappears in "mysterious and tragic circumstances."
Whatever happened to Baby? The characters remember five different versions of the "truth," until it is finally revealed on a predictably stormy night.
New Zealand writer-director Christine Parker takes a lot of risks with her first feature film. Telling the story from five different perspectives via flashbacks is just one of them.
It doesn't quite come off, but if you want to see where New Zealand movies might be going in this decade, give it a try.
