Strange Planet
Australia 1999
Reviewed by Liese Spencer
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Sydney, New Year's Eve 1998. Best friends and roommates Sally, Judy and Alice make their resolutions: Judy will not have any more affairs with married men, Alice promises to watch fewer films starring Meg Ryan, and Sally just wants to have fun. Also looking for love elsewhere in the city are Ewan, Joel and Neil, partners in a law firm. Over the next 12 months, Judy pursues a career in television and begins an affair with her boss' husband Steven. The faddish Sally has sex with different men and women. Alice argues with Judy over her affair with Steven. After a near date-rape, Alice learns to kickbox. Meanwhile, Ewan drops out of law to become a taxi driver and engages in a series of one-night stands until one girl gets pregnant. Joel's perfect world is shattered when his wife leaves him for another woman. Neil goes to a dating agency. Three weeks later he gets married.
On New Year's Eve 1999, Sally, Judy and Alice go to Steven's house to celebrate. Steven has also given Ewan the key to the house. Ewan and Joel arrive, followed by Neil who has abandoned his marriage. Over the evening, Ewan and Judy, Alice and Joel and Sally and Neil pair off.
Review
In her breezy, no-budget debut Love and Other Catastrophes, 23-year-old film student Emma-Kate Croghan captured the essence of being young and in angst. Bursting with witty, literary asides, her Australian campus comedy revolved around a bunch of young lovers who were not the buffed teen gods of Dawson's Creek, but peaky students who looked and acted their age. Moving the action to Sydney, her not-quite sequel Strange Planet follows a group of postgraduates in their twenties negotiating life and love. Similarly episodic, it serves up the same combination of self-consciously literary lines (one running gag offers a Freudian interpretation of women's handbags), life lessons and film references - except this time around it all seems forced and ingratiating. Despite equally breakneck editing, all the zest and spontaneity of the first film seem to have evaporated. A weak screenplay, cyclical plot and schematic romance conspire to render the action ploddingly predictable. Characters are sketchy and hopelessly overdetermined. Judy's cynicism and obsession with older men, for example, is explained by a brief meeting with an implausible rockstar Dad and a couple of corny cutaways to her talking to her mother's grave.
While the callow, earnest students of Catastrophes were rather endearing, the six protagonists here are never more than sitcom stereotypes. As they are rushed through a series of clichéd emotional crises, the glib direction tries to seem both funny and honest but ends up being neither. The visuals are often deliberately cartoonish, such as Alice fending off a date-rapist in a Minnie Mouse costume. Elsewhere the relationship rumination is as mundane as Friends.
Similarities to this series are underlined by the casting of Courteney Cox-lookalike Claudia Karvan as Judy. A bright spark in an otherwise unremarkable cast, Karvan's appearance at the fancy-dress party with estranged lover Hugo Weaving provides one of the film's few highlights. With his sleekly oiled widow's peak and sharp fangs, his caddish older man makes a great Dracula. Karvan seems not to have bothered with a costume at all. Asked what she's "come as" she snaps, "a serial killer, they look like everyone else."
Credits
- Director
- Emma-Kate Croghan
- Producers
- Stavros Kazantzidis
- Anastasia Sideris
- Screenplay
- Stavros Kazantzidis
- Emma-Kate Croghan
- Story
- Stavros Kazantzidis
- Director of Photography
- Justin Brickle
- Editor
- Ken Sallows
- Production Designer
- Annie Beauchamp
- ©Australian Film Finance Corporation Limited/New South Wales Film and Television Office/Premium Partnership and Strange Planet Films Pty Ltd.
- Production Companies
- Australian Film Finance Corporation presents a Strange Planet production in association with The Premium Movie Partnership/Showtime Australia & the New South Wales Film & TV Office
- This film was produced with the financial assistance of the Australian Film Commission
- Executive Producer
- Bruno Charlesworth
- Line Producer
- Maggie Lake
- Production Co-ordinator
- Ruth Watson
- Unit Manager
- Bob Graham
- Location Manager
- Phillip Roope
- Assistant Directors
- John Martin
- Debbie Antoniou
- Jessica Turner
- Script Supervisor/ Continuity
- Morgan Khadem
- Casting
- Shauna Wolifson
- Mullinars Casting Consultants
- Steadicam Operator
- Phil Balsdon
- Visual Effects
- Animal Logic
- Special Effects
- John Bowring
- Art Director
- Michael Iacono
- Set Decorator
- Richie Dehne
- Scenic Artist
- Martin Bruveris
- Storyboard Artist
- Brandon Hendroff
- Graphics
- Beth Pickworth
- Costume Designer
- Emily Seresin
- Costume Supervisor
- Kerry Thompson
- Make-up/Hair Supervisor/Designer
- Lynn Wheeler
- Make-up/Hair Stylists
- Kerry Lee Jury
- Kathy Courtney
- Title Design/Production
- Animal Logic
- Angela Pelizzari
- Grant Everett
- Krista Jordan
- Fiona Crawford
- Melanie Ritchie
- Zareh Nalbandian
- End Credits Design/Shoot
- Optical & Graphic
- Opticals
- DFilm Services
- Ken Phelan
- Music Supervision
- Roger Grierson
- Leah Warwick
- Gary Seeger
- Simon Kain
- Libby Blakey
- Josh Abraham
- Soundtrack
- "Music Takes You High" by Jerome Ismael, Marcel Krieg, performed by Future Funk; "Guajia Guantanmera" by José Fernandez Diaz, performed by Waldo Fabian; "Auld Lang Sayne" performed by Waldo Fabian; "Time" by Keira Hodgkison, Swirl; "The Look of Love" by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, performed by Dusty Springfield; "Going in Circles" by/performed by Tameka Starr; "Peepshow" by Alexander Wasiliev, Stuart Miller; "Llego la banda" by F. Aguirre, Control 100%; "Message to My Girl" by Neil Finn, performed by Split Enz; "Hold Your Head High" by T. Mousse, Errol Rennalls, Inaya Davies; "Tape Loop" by Paul Godfrey, Ross Godfrey, Skye Edwards; "Hard" by Cindy Ryan; "Never Take You Back" by Nathaniel Burgess, performed by Dr Rhythm, vocals: Meagan Corson; "Superstar Baby" by Adam Salkeld, Richard Berg, performed by Palefield Mountain; "Hour of Need" by Rollo Armstrong, Ayalah Bentovim, Jamie Catto, performed by Faithless; "Aliens" by Alexander Wasiliev; "Theme" by/performed by Brett Rosenberg; "Original Soundtrack Taxi Driver" by Bernard Herrmann; "Je suis à toi" by J. Abrahams, performed by Amial Daemion; "Do You Wanna Funk" by Patrick Cowley, Sylvester James, performed by Sylvester James; "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, Pete Bellotte; "Learning to Fly" by/performed by Big C (Andrew Cocup), vocals: Dee; "Tainted Love" by/performed by Ed Cobb; "Sweet Pain (Joì Remix)" by Michael Brook, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, performed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; "! (The Song Formerly Known As)" by Quan Yeomans, performed by Regurgitator, contains samples of "Get Up and Boogie", "Thank You Mr DJ" by Sylvester Levay, Stephan Prager; "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas, performed by David Bowers; "Wood Cabin" by Sarah Cracknell, Robert Stanley, Peter Wiggs; "Can't Live without You; "Reflections"; "The First Noel"
- Sound Designer
- Craig Carter
- Sound Recordist
- Andrew Belletty
- Mixer
- Paul 'Go Hawkes' Pirola
- Sound Editor
- Livia Ruzic
- Sound Post-production
- Soundfirm (Sydney)
- Roger Savage
- Helen Field
- Liz Wright
- Laura Gothiery
- Dialogue Editor
- Frank Lipson
- Effects/Atmos
- Bryce Grunden
- ADR
- Ian McLoughlin
- Foley
- Steve Burgess
- Gerry Long
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Rocky McDonald
- Kick Boxing Coach
- Gary Pettersen
- Film Extract
- Taxi Driver (1976)
- Cast
- Claudia Karvan
- Judy Robinson
- Naomi Watts
- Alice
- Alice Garner
- Sally
- Tom Long
- Ewan
- Aaron Jeffery
- Joel
- Felix Williamson
- Neil
- Hugo Weaving
- Steven Schumacher
- Rebecca Frith
- Amanda Schumacher
- Marshall Napier
- Robert, ex-lover
- Loene Carmen
- Amy
- Heidi McDonald
- Bridget
- Harry Cripps
- Paul
- Rebel Penfold-Russell
- producer
- Hugh Baldwin
- Bob
- Helen Thomson
- Lulu
- Gennie Nevinson
- therapist
- Andréa Moor
- dating agency woman
- Kim Deacon
- Joan
- David Gibson
- Danny
- Kate Beahan
- Poppy
- Tang Ling-Hsueh
- Verna
- Emily Rickard
- Flora
- Leah Vandenberg
- Sarah
- Jeremiah Tickell
- David Walsman
- Cressida Wilson
- night clubbers
- Austen Tayshus
- old hippie man
- Louise Birgan
- loser-magnet woman
- Nathalie Roy
- Ewan's NY kissing girl
- Miles Paras
- solicitor
- Rabbi Brian Fox
- rabbi
- Reg Mombassa
- Bon
- Mental As Anything
- Martin Plaza
- Andrew Smith
- Peter O'Dougherty
- Dave Toohill
- the band
- Megan Ormsby
- groupie
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Redbus Film Distribution
- 8,654 feet
- 96 minutes 9 seconds
- Dolby digital
- In Colour