Still Mine

It’s not uncommon for the titles of films to be changed when they are released in Australia and New Zealand – and no doubt elsewhere. The wonderful comedy Airplane! Starring Leslie Neilson is known as Flying High! in the Antipodes; the Lindy Chamberlain biopic  A Cry in the Dark was released under the more sinister title of Evil Angels.

Sometimes it can be amusing when a film title is not changed. I read many years ago, without verification but quite believably, that the British distributors of the American film, Free Willy, implored its producers to change the name for British audiences, explaining the title could easily be misconstrued. The Americans weren’t having a bar of it and insisted the original title be used. I recall sitting in theatres as the film was trailed. Audiences fell about laughing as the sententious voice-over intoned ‘Free Willy will touch you; your heart will ache for Free Willy’ or words to that effect.

Why the Canadian drama Still needed its name changed to Still Mine for Australian audiences is unclear.

Like so many films being released recently, we are told at its beginning that the film is ‘based on a true story’. Quite what that phrase means, and the licence it gives to film-makers, is open to the widest interpretation. It is a specious use of language. It allows writer and director to re-frame events, dissemble, misrepresent people, and, if challenged on points of veracity, hide behind the fact that it was never claimed to be a truthful recall.

Still Mine follows the story of octogenarian Craig Morrison (James Cromwell) who decides to build a smaller home on his 200 acres for he and his wife Irene (Geneviève Bujold) as she slips ever further into dementia. He knows what he’s doing but is unfamiliar with modern-day planning regulations and his plans and actions fail to satisfy building laws. He gets into a stoush with the local council, whose employees are all shown as heartless, uncompromising automatons, and eventually ends up in Court for failing to comply with Stop notices

James Cromwell and Geneviève Bujold are both fine in their roles having to deliver some rather turgid dialogue on occasions. But overall the film is just too small-scale.

Direction from Michael McGowan, who also wrote the film, is uninspired. The film is set in rural New Brunswick yet it fails to give much sense of location. In telling such a minor story and putting it on the big screen, he really needed to draw the audience in. Had he interspersed low-key dramatic events with linking shots showing the magnitude of the land and the beauty of the changing seasons and ocean then the film would surely have been more suited to a cinema release. Yes I know it was never meant to be a travelogue. But as it stands, it simply has the feel of a hastily made TV movie of the 1970s with limited production values. The paying audience are entitled to more than this.

***

Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux a la Reine)

There were no issues concerning production values on the faux-historical romp Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux a la Reine) from French writer and director Benoit Jacquot.

Set mainly in Versailles over three days as the Bastille is stormed and the French Revolution gains unstoppable momentum, this is a lavish production with superb costume design and sets.

Shown mainly from the point of view of the servants to the royals and aristocrats, the film makes good use of France’s palatial architecture and neatly shows the difference in the opulence of the super rich and squalid conditions of their largely loyal and deferential lackeys. The film is beautifully shot, both inside and out, and allows the audience to feel they are being given a personal guided tour of one of France’s greatest museums loaded with fine art and antiques.

The story focuses on seduction and loyalty between protagonists within the palace and their reaction to unfolding history which is mainly off-screen. The film, which is strongly female orientated in cast and storyline, titillated with lesbian longing and did so in a salacious and voyeuristic manner. It could have amounted to so much more.

This is a film that will appeal to all those who mourn the passing of Downton Abbey.

3.5 stars