Review: The Turning

One of nine …..

 

Title:                         The Turning

Certificate:               15

Director:                   Various, including Mia Wasikowska, David Wenham, Claire McCarthy

Major Players:         Cate Blanchett, Hugh Weaving, Rose Byrne

Out Of Five:             3.5

 

Portmanteau films had their heyday in the 40s and 50s but they’ve never really gone away.  More recent examples include Plaza Suite (1971), California Suite (1978) and Sin City (2005) – but we won’t talk about Movie 43.  They tend to be held together by a single location or character(s), but Australian anthology The Turning has taken a different approach, bringing together a series of short stories united by common themes.  After that, everything is up for grabs – cast, style, setting, you name it.

Those themes range from time, regret and addiction, to how the past affects the present and how some incidents, however random, leave an indelible legacy.  And most of them also literally document a turning, or turning point, for a character when something changed the course of their life irrevocably.

It’s based on the book of the same name by Tim Winton, a collection of short stories from Australia about ordinary people in ordinary places.  The London Film Festival last October showed the full version, comprising all 19 stories from the book and lasting three hours.  The version released in cinemas this week is shorter at just one hour 45 minutes and features nine stories.  It may leave room for a second part but, in practical terms, it’s a more sensible length, giving each story time to bed down in your mind.

The Australia we see in the stories is extraordinarily diverse and not the Australian dream we’re used to seeing on TV.  Sure, there’s comfortable suburbia, but there’s also the uncompromising Outback, trailer parks with communal toilets, bleached white beaches and coasts scarred by industrialisation.

And the nine films are equally diverse, each with their own director, writer and individual style.  One (Sand) has no dialogue at all, while in others (Long, Clear View and Big World), any words are spoken only by a narrator.  Each story has a different cast, including big names like Cate Blanchett (she stars in Reunion, which is also scripted by her husband, Andrew Upton), Hugo Weaving and Rose Byrne.

But, despite the different people behind the cameras, there is a consistently sombre, thoughtful tone.  Each story also starts by throwing out a series of questions, based on the assumptions you instinctively make about what’s happening on the screen.  It’s a quick hook to reel you in.  So in Reunion, when Cate Blanchett, her husband and mother-in-law arrive at what’s supposed to be another relative’s house, you find yourself asking immediately if they’re at the right house.  And in The Turning, which gives the film its name, you wonder how Rose Byrne got her black eye.  Just one shot of her husband sprawled in a chair tells you.

While The Turning is meant to hold together as a film in its own right, two stories are strong enough to stand alone as shorts.  The Commission is the best, with Hugo Weaving as a middle aged recovering alcoholic living in a tin shack in the Outback.  A visit from his estranged son makes him realise he’s ready to confront his past – his failed relationship and a situation when he turned a blind eye instead of intervening, with disastrous results.  It’s a powerful and atmospheric with Weaving excellent as the resourceful recluse who’s given up drink.  But guilt can’t give him up.

A stand-out performance from Rose Byrne makes The Turning – the story, not the entire film – eminently watchable.  Living in a trailer with her children and husband, she makes a new friend at the local launderette who has a far more comfortable life – their respective sets of teeth tell you everything – although it’s not without its problems.  Her strong religious faith shows the battered woman that there is an alternative to her current life.

As a whole, The Turning is a film full of surprises.  From the start of each story, you never know what to expect – the story, the setting or, indeed, whether it actually works or not.  Most of them do, although Aquifer is the least satisfactory in its depiction of the death of a schoolboy bully being witnessed by his favourite victim.  Logistically, it makes no sense, undermining the emotional impact of the story.

Narrowing down the number of stories to nine helps prevent The Turning from being something of a blur: a longer film would have seriously run this risk.  Despite the challenging nature of some of the stories, it’s often beautiful to look at – the photography in Sand, in particular – and there’s plenty of subtlety and sensitivity on show.  Inevitably, as a film made up from nine shorts made by different people, variation abounds, which is the movie’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness.

 

The Turning is released in selected cinemas around the UK on Friday, 6 February.