After four years steady work in a video store following her successful kicking of a heroin habit, there's light at the end of the tunnel for Tracy Heart (Blanchett).

She plans to set up her own internet gaming business in partnership with her current boss... and needs a loan of $30,000.

However, her sordid past isn't just satisfied with haunting her... it's out to cripple her as well.

The debt demands of a all-consuming heroin habit - now conquered - means no bank will lend her the money while her brother Ray (Henderson) and surrogate dad Lionel (Weaving) have debilitating drugs problems of their own.

The only respite from a seemingly hopeless impasse is the arrival back in Sydney of ex-boyfriend Jonny (Dustin Nguyen), a Vietnamese Australian sent to Canada to clean himself up.

Director Rowan Woods concentrates on the characters rather than complexities of the plot so you emotionally engage with Tracy as she tries to sort herself out.

She's not an immediately likeable character - she's cursed with the prickly hesitation, rock-bottom self-esteem and the jittery relationships of the recovering smackhead.

However, it's a convincingly subtle, well-observed performance from Blanchett, who's given the chance to bounce of similarly detailed character studies from Henderson and Weaving.

The latter is the diametric opposite of his Lord of the Rings/Matrix portrayals - a football hero reduced to a helpless junkie wrestling with his homosexuality.

Unfortunately, it's here that things come apart. The narrative suffers from one or two surplus characters endowed with rather two many dodgy personality traits.

That said, it's never less than engaging and skilfully avoids the dramatic pitfalls that claim the standard issue British geezer capers.

Tim Evans