Starring: Jordan Dulieu, Freyja Benjamin, Gigi Edgley, Martin Crewes, Siham Yahya, Benjamin Mathews
Distributor: Independent
Runtime: 90 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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An alienated teenager learns to find meaning and purpose through the pain of love and loss.
About 20 minutes into this drama, a young hippie character from the US, wandering in Australia, Liz (Benjamin) explains the title. The parameters are birth and death and everything in between is life, to be lived. And this is important for the other central character, Jason (Dulieu) whom she has encountered at the hospital.
This is an Australian film with universal themes. As the title indicates, it is a film about life, the meaning of life, those disillusioned with life and wanting to end it as well as those whose physical condition and deterioration are leading to the end of life. The setting is Sydney – the southern and eastern beachside suburbs, the interiors of a fashionable home, many visits to the Royal Sydney Hospital.
The film is introduced by a hippie-like beach party, drugs and alcohol, music and dance, on the beach. And that is where we find Liz, with the drugs, but having some kind of physical as well as mental turn, wandering, at the high cliffs edge. At which stage we are introduced to Jason, aged around 20, immediately seen as morose if not depressed, riding in a taxi, monosyllabic replies, wandering a cliff path and standing on the edge, wanting to jump, or fall.
So, both meet at the hospital, Jason fussed over by his would-be glamorous mother, his father glimpsed having an affair with his secretary, but coming to take Jason home. It would seem that Jason has had a loner history, no friends, reading science books in his room, but no real life (and no flashbacks to explain or illustrate this).
Of course, we can see that the problem can be related to his relationship with his parents. As the film emerges, they are a mixture of love, good sense, bewilderment, self-preoccupation, worry about what they should do. In fact, his father (Crewes) is better at being positive with his son than the often flighty but loving mother.
The important part of the film is the meeting between Liz and Jason, accidental, incidental, but a reminder that sometimes one small gesture, one small invitation can lead to changes and unanticipated benefits.
The film shows the friendship between Liz and Jason, Jason and his therapy, and interviews with doctors, the possibility of going into an institution, but his concern about Liz and her interviews with the doctors, diagnosis of a rare physical condition that requires surgery.
Liz is a strong character though at times overwhelmed by her prospects, especially on the eve of serious surgery. Jason, on the other hand, responds to another person in a way that he never has before.
A small film, themes which have been treated both in film and in documentary, but 90 minutes with characters who are worth the attention (even to the parents despite their limitations and irritations), and, as we look finally at the photo of Liz and Jason, we read her note about life and everything in between.
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