Suburban Mayhem (2006)

Touches You

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Paul Goldman and Alice Bell's mockumentary "Suburban Mayhem" starts off with some measure of interest in its subjects' state of arrested development, but manages to fracture its focus into different pieces before it's through. The Aussie production does allude to its working class suburb's infant terrible syndrome, channeling the seminal "Romper Stomper" well enough by juggling murder, delinquency and a hefty pacing of sex, drugs and roll 'n' roll. However, setting the stage just doesn't cut it when the noxious characters woefully expose its wafer-thin plotting. Goldman's self-satisfied intentions are made clear enough and tacky dinner-table transgressions aside; the film's black comedy routine is merely discernible at best but it's just not particularly biting or droll. Katrina (Emily Barclay), its patricidal, chain-smoking femme fatale shoulders the film's best scenes despite the young character's tendency to regress into a badge for its director to smugly flash about as the latest and loudest provocateur of Australia's idyllic suburbia.

I found this movie to be full of 'the bad things' - it's been a while since a movie has left me feeling so upset and bad! For the viewer, things seem to go from bad to worse, with the lead character on a manipulative rampage, using her bad girl sexuality that some men just can't get enough of to make them do all sorts of wrong things.How can you hate Katrina? Even after watching her do all of these awful things in 'Suburban Mayhem', as a male you still can't stop getting some kind of a kick out of her.The director claims there is 'no other (female) character like Katrina in Australian cinematic history' - while I'm not expert on the subject, I certainly can't think of one! In the vein of The Opposite of Sex (so I'm told) mixed with Natural Born Killers. A bit like a car crash - you know you shouldn't look but you can't look away from the horror!

I just came back from a showing of this film where the director (Paul Goldman) and the female lead (Emily Barclay) introduced the film and participated in a Q&A from the audience. I would encourage you to see the film - the script is really engaging and the mock-documentary style used through parts of the film gives it a really interesting edge. But the main reason to see this is the amazing performance by Barclay. She commands the screen, you simply can't take your eyes off her. While you may not empathise with the character of Katrina, Barclay plays her with such strength and confidence and its great to see such a strong female character being written and being played so well. Keep your eye on Barclay and Bell's (writer) career - I think this is only the beginning!!

Hmm... I am actually in this film, I went to the "premiere" screening tonight in Newcastle (after the film had already been in the can for several months now). This also coincides with the announcement for the AFI awards. It didn't surprise me that this film wasn't nominated for best picture. I know we've had some absolute stinkers of late, but honestly, this failed to live up to my expectations. I read another comment on this page saying how it was a "high-octane thrill ride". Well, honestly, this should serve as a reminder not to mix ethanol with your screenplays unless you're going to burn them.I feel for Alice Bell. I know she's been told by a lot of people that this film is brilliant, but honestly, her vision of a cat-out-of-hell Corman-esquire tyrade has been painfully dissolved by Goldman self indulgent directing. Firstly, the talking heads documentary. Why do it unless you had a lot of screen time to fill. We know what's going to happen in the end. It seems to me that if you're going to have a "high-octane thrill ride", shouldn't you at least be living in the now and the present? I mean, isn't all this just past tense. We know she makes it, we know Rusty makes it, we know someone dies. I mean, if you're going to set your structure up in such a house-of-cards way, you may as well just film it as a segment for A Current Affairs afterall.Structure is the most important in storytelling. All the flashy shots, no matter how elaborate, are meaningless if you can't justify your plot. This seems to be the problem with Australian films of late. Our funding bodies just seem to be giving our tax money to the same old people to create the same old films. Trust me, three years from now, this movie will be on some shelf in a DVD shop with a fifty cent pricetag on it.Let's making something lasting and resonant. Play with your camera's and digital floating mailbox effects with your own time. Once more, I say, decent idea, sadly subverted, poorly executed.Alice if you're reading this dear, don't let my words get you down. Please try, try again.