Holy Alliance A Class Act
Newcastle Herald
Friday February 11, 2000
BLOODY Jane Campion ? this director had me convinced through this movie that the wheels would fall off, then she turns around and ties it all up nice and neat and everyone goes `awwwwwww'.
Ruth Barron (Winslet) plays a feisty young Aussie lass (with a GREAT accent) who goes on holiday to India and becomes enamoured of some religious sect over there, discovering peace, brown rice, contentment, blah-blah-blah.
But this great religious moment goes down like a lead balloon with her parents in Sydneyside Sans Souci ? there'll be no epiphany in their family, thank you very much.
Being simple white middle class folk, they decide that mum (Julie Hamilton ? terrific performance) will pop over there and bring their girl home by fair means or foul.
They fork out $10,000 to professional `exit counsellor' American PJ Waters (Keitel) to talk Ruth out of this religious phase she's going through.
PJ glides through Sydney airport to the music of Neil Diamond, untangling trollies and leaving no doubt that he's a man's man . . . and a seventies chauvinist heading for a fall.
PJ and Ruth lock horns and off we go through a land of ugly Australians in a clash of belief systems and sexual politics towards an odd sort of happy ending.
Campion seems a little influenced by The Castle, but that's forgiveable, and performances are uniformly excellent, including Austen Tayshus as an excitable rabbi. ? Frank Sullivan Showcase, Glendale
© 2000 Newcastle Herald