With subliminal allusions to Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, this Australian family drama is a woman's film in every respect. Directed by Gillian Armstrong and penned by novelist Helen Garner, it deals with sisterly angst between fortysomething Beth (Lisa Harrow) and her wilder, impetuous younger sister Vicki (Kerry Fox). Fox is the best thing in the film as she bursts like a thunderbolt back to her novelist sister's home where she lives with her disaffected husband, a Frenchman called JP (Bruno Ganz), and their teenage daughter Annie (Miranda Otto). The men, as in most feminist diatribes, are depicted as ciphers or curmudgeons and we end up not really liking anyone at all. Harrow, as befits her more gentle demeanour, is the most sympathetic of the ensemble.


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