Regular readers of this blog will not need reminding that I am apt to sing the praises of the great Australian director Fred Schepisi at a moment’s notice. As well as containing two out-and-out masterpieces (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Six Degrees of Separation), his CV is characterised by its eclecticism, incorporating everything from star vehicles (such as Roxanne, Steve Martin’s comic spin on Cyrano de Bergerac) to surprising genre work-outs (the western Barbarosa, the Cold War thriller The Russia House).
If you need convincing that he can coax out and shape unpredictable work from established actors, take a look at Meryl Streep in her two films for Schepisi, Plenty and A Cry in the Dark, or at the ensemble cast (Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Ray Winstone, David Hemmings) in Last Orders. Or – let’s cut straight to the reason I’m banging on about him again – his most recent film, an adaptation of Patrick White’s 1973 novel The Eye of the Storm, about a dying woman exerting a last few drops of precious control and tyranny over her two adult children.
The movie opened in Australia last year, and in the US last month, but has yet to be released here. Happily, there is a screening at London’s Hackney Picturehouse this Sunday as part of FilmFest Australia. The cast is a dream. As Elizabeth Hunter, the imperious, be-wigged matriarch, Charlotte Rampling delivers what must be her tartest performance, and that’s saying something. I wonder how she prepared to play this delicious gorgon, who spends most of the film ruling the world from her soon-to-be-deathbed. Perhaps she marinated herself in a bath of vinegar and spite for several days, or simply watched some of her own back catalogue.
There can’t be many other performers who could convincingly intimidate Geoffrey Rush, who plays Elizabeth’s pompous but wounded son, the self-regarding thespian Basil, or Judy Davis, as her vulnerable daughter Dorothy. (It’s nice to see Davis getting a rare break from the abrasive parts that have been her stock-in-trade since she turned bitterness and sarcasm into a bloodsport in Husbands and Wives.)
Basil and Dorothy turn up at their mother’s house to pick over what’s coming to them once she dies, only she’s not quite ready to go yet. From the moment Elizabeth explains witheringly why she never wanted to see Basil perform (“If you weren’t any good, it would have broken my heart”), you know the power struggles will be more spectacular and explosive than any action movie. Schepisi, who is 73 years old, takes to the material with his customary mix of elegance and energy; his regular cinematographer Ian Baker creates some stately compositions which add an ironic edge to the characters’ petty bitching and bickering, while the pointed score by Paul Grabowksky hints, never too heavily, at the chance that this family’s ancient wounds might heal.
“The Eye of the Storm” is at Hackney Picturehouse on Sunday. A release date has yet to be announced.