Pluskylang Great Film overall

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Sindre Kaspersen New Zealand screenwriter, producer and director Gaylene Preston's third feature film which she wrote and co-produced, was screened at the 39th Chicago International Film Festival in 2003, was shot on location at the West Coast of the South Island in New Zealand and is a New Zealand production which was produced by New Zealand producer Robin Laing. It tells the story about a middle-aged woman named Melanie who works in the kitchen at a restaurant. One night whilst she is out with her friends at a bar, a mysterious stranger appears out of the blue and after a brief conversation she joins him. He takes Melanie to his boat and the next day she wakes up in a hut on a remote Island by the coast.Distinctly and finely directed by New Zealand filmmaker Gaylene Preston, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated mostly from the main character's point of view, draws a quiet and intriguing portrayal of a remarkably unusual relationship between two strangers. While notable for it's naturalistic and atmospheric milieu depictions, sterling cinematography by New Zealand cinematographer Alun Bollinger and production design by art director and production designer Joe Bleakely, this character-driven, narrative-driven and unsettling mystery about trust depicts a rare study of character and contains a good score by composers David Donaldson, Stephen Roche and Janet Roddick.This at times wickedly humorous and somewhat surreal psychological thriller where a woman whom is looking for a man finds someone who seems to know very much about her, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, colorful characters and the fine acting performances by New Zealand actor Sam Neill and Australian actress Rachael Blake. A romantic, lyrical and fairy-tale-like love-story from the early 21st century which takes an atypical approach in it's examination of relationships between men and women and which gained the award for Best Actress Rachael Blake at the 24th Fantasport International Film Festival in 2004.

jax713 Yet another film boondoggled by sophomoric "artistic vision." What starts out as a potentially interesting story - a rather hum drum woman who leads a hum drum life meets an unusual, perhaps loony, man on one of her outings to a local singles bar - ends in the most mundane psychotic break ever depicted on screen. This could have been a fairly engrossing dramedy about the desire to be in love, but it went off-topic into a macabre rendition of guilt and mental illness. Though the "need" to be in love becomes the overriding emotion in this story, it is presented in a grotesque, yet surprisingly boring, way. The story physically isolates the characters from the rest of the world by putting them on an island, but the real world is not that far away so it makes the happenings on the island less believable and, in fact, emphasizes the plot holes. The ending is just plain dumb and I wondered if Melanie was really pregnant or if she was having what I believe is called an hysterical pregnancy wherein a woman experiences all the symptoms but isn't really going to have a baby.This is a good movie for insomniacs who won't be kept awake too long. I actually nodded off in the middle and had to rewind, but found I hadn't missed anything important. One star for adequate acting by the principals even though they didn't have much of a script to work with.

stensson It starts like a conventional girl-goes-home-with-the-wrong-man-horror. After a while it is almost relation comedy and psycho drama and relation comedy again.You miss the traditional agenda here. This is perhaps a form experiment, mixing genres. But the mix is not done in a clever way. You expect something to happen, a real climax, but it never comes and you are slowly getting uninterested.This kind of genre mixing can be exciting, but the actors here are not capable of fulfilling the director's intentions. A failure and not a very good one.

marimerce753 I liked this movie (or at least I think so... I'm not quite sure). It's very strange, but funny.Maybe it's the best role in which I've seen Sam Neill, even though I believe he doesn't convince completely in that scene in which he gets rough and hit the girl.In the other hand she does a good job (and during all the movie!!): I liked it, despite she's not very famous here in Spain. It's the first of her movies I have heard... The best: The end (frightening!)