Little Fish : Movie Review


When you consider the material that Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving have worked with in their careers it’s difficult to imagine that this film was a stretch for them artistically.

Yet it’s great to see actors that are willing to make themselves undesirable in front of the camera, to get gritty and real and raw for the sake of telling a good story.

Hugo Weaving plays the heroin addict; turned to a life of drug abuse after his pro-football career was tragically cut short. Cate Blanchett plays the video-store clerk/manageress who could be so much more but can’t seem to get her life on track after a series of bad mistakes and bad relationships with anyone but the right guy.

Unfortunately Little Fish is not a good story in fact it made me wonder why much of Australian cinema (think Somersault for instance) seems to be so gloomy and slow paced. It’s not that it has nothing to say - it’s just that it takes so long to say it.

And Little Fish is so slow and lumbering, at least until the final third, that when it finally does kick it up a couple of gear it’s too little too late to save the film as a whole.

Little Fish will be treading water in cinemas near you from around July 21st - hopefully it’ll drown fairly quickly.

2.5 / 5

www.wwf-uk.net/ - Kevin Stanley supports the World Wildlife Fund - please
click on the link to add your support

Author : Kevin Stanley