Swimming Upstream

By PETER CALDER

(Herald rating: * *)

Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis lend some gravitas to this period piece but can't rescue it from being a dreary and downbeat memoir of childhood notable more for its production design than anything else.

The writer, Anthony Fingleton, has adapted his autobiographical novel into a film which keenly evokes its 1950s Brisbane setting but is a frustratingly vague piece of screen drama.

Fingleton was a promising swimmer who later became a screenwriter (notably of Drop Dead Fred which featured Rik Mayall as a youngster's imaginary friend). The movie version of his book makes it plain he had a pretty hard teenage life.

His father Harold (Rush), an embittered wharfie who wanted to be a star footballer, cynically plays off young Tony (Spencer) against his bullying and competitive brothers. Harold reviles Tony's artistic aspirations as poofter stuff and only when he realises that Tony has potential to shine as a swimmer does he begin to take an interest in him, urging him on to possible Olympic glory.

The drunken father, tormented and tormentor, is a cinematic staple verging on cliche and Rush, a mannered and rather opaque actor at the best of times, does little to let us inside Harold's head. Davis, who manages to be both brittle and feisty, achieves some moments of humanity but the film never really engages us as a story worth telling.

Making matters worse, director Mulcahy, a Melbourne native who helmed the sci-fi junk Highlander series, employs a dynamic split-screen technique for the swimming sequences. It worked well in Woodstock and doubtless in the music vids which are his bread and butter but here it just jars - though not as much as the shot from below (through a glass floor!) of a kitchen scuffle.

The closing credits announce that Tony's sister Diane, a peripheral figure here, went on to become Queensland's Chief Magistrate. Now, that would be an interesting story. This wasn't.

Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, Jesse Spencer, Tim Draxl Director: Russell Mulcahy Running time: 101 mins Screening: Rialto Auckland, Hamilton Rating: M, adult themes.