2:37
The decision was nearly impossible. Last Monday night in Sydney, there were two question and answer sessions: films being screened followed by a chat between the audience and the director. Both these films were ones I had been waiting on for some time; the Australian high school drama 2:37 and the US satire Thank You For Smoking.
2:37 was written and directed by Murali K. Thalluri. Thalluri is twenty one. He was even younger when he made this movie. Until this month it had been nigh on impossible to find information about the guy and how he managed such a task. Thank You For Smoking was also directed by a first-timer: Ivan Reitman's son Jason. While it's also being hailed as an impressive debut, there's no way it could have as interesting a backstory as 2:37- I wonder how Jason managed to get the funding?!?
But 2:37 is Australian, and while Australian films have been improving of late (last year was fantastic, this year might be just as good) it's still a risky bet, especially from a filmmaker with so little experience. Thank You For Smoking is getting a lot of good reviews and seemed to be just my kind of dark comedy.
So a coin decided for me. 2:37 it was. It was arranged. And the next morning, I found out that there was a second Q&A screening of Thank You For Smoking on the Tuesday night- review to come later. Thank you, trusty coin flip!
2:37
Giving too much away here would be criminal, so I'll only tell the first few minutes. At the start of the film, we have the discovery of a body in a high school. We don't see the body, just the blood, but we understand that someone has taken their own life. We then go back to the beginning of the day, where we are introduced to six students at the school. If you were in the shoes of any of these kids, you might consider taking your own life too.
2:37 is being compared to Gus Van Sant's Elephant. Both feature long following shots, with time constantly overlapping with multiple points of view, and both end in tragedy. Elephant shows kids meandering through the day, bored and disconnected. 2:37, however, isn't light on plot like Elephant- not that this is an attack on Elephant, which I quite enjoyed. The kids here are all at the peaks of occasionally unimaginable crises. We are presented with pretty huge plot twists over the course of the film, although these relevations that aren't quite as unpredictable as they could have been, being minorly foreshadowed early in the film. The two biggest turns in the film I had predicted to some degree, although the friend I saw the film with didn't.
The narrative is interspersed with black and white interview footage of the six students. A lot of the exposition is handled in the scenes, which could be seen as something of a cop-out, but fortunately it doesn't interrupt the flow of the film and allows for some characters to reveal parts of themselves that wouldn't be seen otherwise, with the film having such a limited timespan.
Quality of the acting varies. Melody, played by Teresa Palmer, probably fares the best here. She resembles Abbie Cornish and is perhaps just as fantastic an actress. Charles Baird, as "Uneven" Steven, is also great, and will break your heart. The weakest actor is Frank Sweet, son of Australian TV star Gary, who himself appears briefly as a teacher. Sweet the Younger, however, has the most difficult character to work with. Marcus is a slightly awkward, extremely academically focused boy, pressured by his father (unlike his sister Melody, who is ignored) but there's more to his character than this, making it a very difficult role to play. I'll also make special mention of Clementine Miller as Kelly, a character with relatively little screen time, who judging by her performance here deserves to have big things coming her way. All of the actors were inexperienced when they filmed, so even the weaker performances can't be faulted too heavily.
And now for a complaint I never thought I'd make for a film: 2:37 has too much swearing. Or perhaps it's not that there's too much of it, it just often seems randomly placed in the film, f-bombs interrupting the flow of the dialogue far too often. Now, I love a good swear, I really do. But all the characters here overuse it, and this is probably where Thalluri shows his age. The dialogue all over is the weakest part of the film.
That said, this is a stunning debut. The story is brave, the camera moves through the school like a dream, and the whole film, although few experiences would be nearly as melodramatic, really does bring right back what it was like to be at school and to feel completely alone. The film is flawed, without doubt, and perhaps from another filmmaker these flaws would be less exusable, but with the film's background taken into consideration, and the passion for the project that is so so clear when watching the film, I have to give this high marks.
9/10
This is one of the times I'm happy with the Australian film industry's shitty marketing practices. The official site of 2:37 is here, and it contains cast and crew information, a tiny image gallery, and the trailer.
Do not watch the trailer.
I've not seen the trailer play before anything. The film's R18+ rating (an equivilant to NC17) would be a limitation, but even so, before it was slapped with this rating they could have played it before Cars if they wanted to. While this trailer doesn't appear to give too much away, but it gives big hints. You'll be watching for certain moments, and it is likely to make you realise things that are revealed towards the end before the halfway point. It's well cut, but also paints 2:37 as a much faster paced movie.
(On a side note, at least it's a much better trailer than the one for the upcoming Brisbane-set 48 Shades, which is apparently based on a book called 48 Shades of Brown. This trailer is indeed a lot of shades of brown, from the voice over that feels like it belongs over a movie from the early eighties or earlier to the fact that it contains an arse shot of that annoying guy from the Greater Union ads. I think beneath it lurks a film that might be decent (not great, but decent) but people who judge what they'll see based on trailers alone will give this one a miss. And I've seen it screened twice in front of movies. Including Over the Hedge for some reason. Oh yeah, and www.48shades.com is a porn site, as I've just discovered. I don't know why it's called that.)
The final credit in the film tells us that the film was not at all government funded. Most Australian films get at least some money from the government, so there's a reason this was pointed out to us, and it was something addressed in the Q&A. Thalluri applied for a grant, but being so young and so inexperienced, he was understandable (even he admits this) turned down. So, in order to make the film, he basically doorknocked the richest people in Adelaide (his hometown, and the Creepy Murder Capital of Australia) and asked for cash.
What really came through in the Q&A was just how determined Thalluri is. He was a really energetic speaker, and funny, but also willing to tell extremely personal stories about his life. You can read all about his life on the website, and all of this stuff he talked about, really candidly, in front of an audience of a couple of hundred people.
He talked about the casting process- rather than have intimidating auditions, that would weed out good performers who may just be too nervous for this, he enrolled in acting classes and found his actors that way. Another thing he mentioned was how he wanted the film to be set anywhere. We're not presented with a typical view of Australiana, so the only thing that really gives away where we are is the accents- watch the film without sound and it could be a school anywhere in the world. A question I didn't think of until after was why Thullari has given us the whitest school in Australia. Even the extras are caucasian. I've never been to Adelaide- maybe that's a less multicultural place than Sydney- or perhaps because the school appears to be fairly affluent it's a comment on that, I'm not sure.
As mentioned earlier, the film is rated R18+, the highest rating a film can get in Australia without being porn. Thullari mentioned the rating being a shock to him, but I'm going to be controversial and say the film deserved the rating. The suicide scene itself is very graphic, but beyond the suicide scene, there are themes and scenes that would be perfectly at home in a Todd Solodnz film. Watching 2:37 is, at times, a difficult task. If it didn't get an R rating, it would have got MA15+, meaning anyone could watch it if with parents.
But more than anything, Thullari said he wants the film to save lives, meaning the most important audience is teenagers. And teenagers really should see this film. I do believe it could save lives. Thullari said he'd willingly create an edited version of the film, one suitible for a lower rating, although I can imagine this to be a very hard thing to do. So, beyond an overhaul of our ratings system, I'd suggest everyone under eighteen, get a fake ID. Or find a cinema that isn't particularly strict on ratings laws. Wait to DVD and rent it out- kids who work at video stores don't care about ratings. This film should be seen.
Just this morning, as I'm editing this, I've seen newspaper ads for the film, which doesn't open for almost two weeks. It's getting advertising, at last. It could be a successful movie. Or its target audience could just go see Click again. Let's hope its the former.
2:37 was written and directed by Murali K. Thalluri. Thalluri is twenty one. He was even younger when he made this movie. Until this month it had been nigh on impossible to find information about the guy and how he managed such a task. Thank You For Smoking was also directed by a first-timer: Ivan Reitman's son Jason. While it's also being hailed as an impressive debut, there's no way it could have as interesting a backstory as 2:37- I wonder how Jason managed to get the funding?!?
But 2:37 is Australian, and while Australian films have been improving of late (last year was fantastic, this year might be just as good) it's still a risky bet, especially from a filmmaker with so little experience. Thank You For Smoking is getting a lot of good reviews and seemed to be just my kind of dark comedy.
So a coin decided for me. 2:37 it was. It was arranged. And the next morning, I found out that there was a second Q&A screening of Thank You For Smoking on the Tuesday night- review to come later. Thank you, trusty coin flip!
2:37
Giving too much away here would be criminal, so I'll only tell the first few minutes. At the start of the film, we have the discovery of a body in a high school. We don't see the body, just the blood, but we understand that someone has taken their own life. We then go back to the beginning of the day, where we are introduced to six students at the school. If you were in the shoes of any of these kids, you might consider taking your own life too.
2:37 is being compared to Gus Van Sant's Elephant. Both feature long following shots, with time constantly overlapping with multiple points of view, and both end in tragedy. Elephant shows kids meandering through the day, bored and disconnected. 2:37, however, isn't light on plot like Elephant- not that this is an attack on Elephant, which I quite enjoyed. The kids here are all at the peaks of occasionally unimaginable crises. We are presented with pretty huge plot twists over the course of the film, although these relevations that aren't quite as unpredictable as they could have been, being minorly foreshadowed early in the film. The two biggest turns in the film I had predicted to some degree, although the friend I saw the film with didn't.
The narrative is interspersed with black and white interview footage of the six students. A lot of the exposition is handled in the scenes, which could be seen as something of a cop-out, but fortunately it doesn't interrupt the flow of the film and allows for some characters to reveal parts of themselves that wouldn't be seen otherwise, with the film having such a limited timespan.
Quality of the acting varies. Melody, played by Teresa Palmer, probably fares the best here. She resembles Abbie Cornish and is perhaps just as fantastic an actress. Charles Baird, as "Uneven" Steven, is also great, and will break your heart. The weakest actor is Frank Sweet, son of Australian TV star Gary, who himself appears briefly as a teacher. Sweet the Younger, however, has the most difficult character to work with. Marcus is a slightly awkward, extremely academically focused boy, pressured by his father (unlike his sister Melody, who is ignored) but there's more to his character than this, making it a very difficult role to play. I'll also make special mention of Clementine Miller as Kelly, a character with relatively little screen time, who judging by her performance here deserves to have big things coming her way. All of the actors were inexperienced when they filmed, so even the weaker performances can't be faulted too heavily.
And now for a complaint I never thought I'd make for a film: 2:37 has too much swearing. Or perhaps it's not that there's too much of it, it just often seems randomly placed in the film, f-bombs interrupting the flow of the dialogue far too often. Now, I love a good swear, I really do. But all the characters here overuse it, and this is probably where Thalluri shows his age. The dialogue all over is the weakest part of the film.
That said, this is a stunning debut. The story is brave, the camera moves through the school like a dream, and the whole film, although few experiences would be nearly as melodramatic, really does bring right back what it was like to be at school and to feel completely alone. The film is flawed, without doubt, and perhaps from another filmmaker these flaws would be less exusable, but with the film's background taken into consideration, and the passion for the project that is so so clear when watching the film, I have to give this high marks.
9/10
This is one of the times I'm happy with the Australian film industry's shitty marketing practices. The official site of 2:37 is here, and it contains cast and crew information, a tiny image gallery, and the trailer.
Do not watch the trailer.
I've not seen the trailer play before anything. The film's R18+ rating (an equivilant to NC17) would be a limitation, but even so, before it was slapped with this rating they could have played it before Cars if they wanted to. While this trailer doesn't appear to give too much away, but it gives big hints. You'll be watching for certain moments, and it is likely to make you realise things that are revealed towards the end before the halfway point. It's well cut, but also paints 2:37 as a much faster paced movie.
(On a side note, at least it's a much better trailer than the one for the upcoming Brisbane-set 48 Shades, which is apparently based on a book called 48 Shades of Brown. This trailer is indeed a lot of shades of brown, from the voice over that feels like it belongs over a movie from the early eighties or earlier to the fact that it contains an arse shot of that annoying guy from the Greater Union ads. I think beneath it lurks a film that might be decent (not great, but decent) but people who judge what they'll see based on trailers alone will give this one a miss. And I've seen it screened twice in front of movies. Including Over the Hedge for some reason. Oh yeah, and www.48shades.com is a porn site, as I've just discovered. I don't know why it's called that.)
The final credit in the film tells us that the film was not at all government funded. Most Australian films get at least some money from the government, so there's a reason this was pointed out to us, and it was something addressed in the Q&A. Thalluri applied for a grant, but being so young and so inexperienced, he was understandable (even he admits this) turned down. So, in order to make the film, he basically doorknocked the richest people in Adelaide (his hometown, and the Creepy Murder Capital of Australia) and asked for cash.
What really came through in the Q&A was just how determined Thalluri is. He was a really energetic speaker, and funny, but also willing to tell extremely personal stories about his life. You can read all about his life on the website, and all of this stuff he talked about, really candidly, in front of an audience of a couple of hundred people.
He talked about the casting process- rather than have intimidating auditions, that would weed out good performers who may just be too nervous for this, he enrolled in acting classes and found his actors that way. Another thing he mentioned was how he wanted the film to be set anywhere. We're not presented with a typical view of Australiana, so the only thing that really gives away where we are is the accents- watch the film without sound and it could be a school anywhere in the world. A question I didn't think of until after was why Thullari has given us the whitest school in Australia. Even the extras are caucasian. I've never been to Adelaide- maybe that's a less multicultural place than Sydney- or perhaps because the school appears to be fairly affluent it's a comment on that, I'm not sure.
As mentioned earlier, the film is rated R18+, the highest rating a film can get in Australia without being porn. Thullari mentioned the rating being a shock to him, but I'm going to be controversial and say the film deserved the rating. The suicide scene itself is very graphic, but beyond the suicide scene, there are themes and scenes that would be perfectly at home in a Todd Solodnz film. Watching 2:37 is, at times, a difficult task. If it didn't get an R rating, it would have got MA15+, meaning anyone could watch it if with parents.
But more than anything, Thullari said he wants the film to save lives, meaning the most important audience is teenagers. And teenagers really should see this film. I do believe it could save lives. Thullari said he'd willingly create an edited version of the film, one suitible for a lower rating, although I can imagine this to be a very hard thing to do. So, beyond an overhaul of our ratings system, I'd suggest everyone under eighteen, get a fake ID. Or find a cinema that isn't particularly strict on ratings laws. Wait to DVD and rent it out- kids who work at video stores don't care about ratings. This film should be seen.
Just this morning, as I'm editing this, I've seen newspaper ads for the film, which doesn't open for almost two weeks. It's getting advertising, at last. It could be a successful movie. Or its target audience could just go see Click again. Let's hope its the former.
posted by Simon A at 7:39 PM
3 Comments:
Yeah, Aussie films have been advertised lately! I even saw ads for Footy Legends on TV! Wow.
I really wanna see 2:37, considering I love Elephant. It reminds me of an argument relating to Requiem for a Dream. Everyone thinks they should show that movie to teenagers and they would never touch drugs in their life - but it's rated R so they can't and now we're drug crazy.
pfft.
I've just come home from seeing '2:37', it is a great film!
I'm still taking it in, a very emotional and powerful film. Everyone should make an effort to go and see it.
Listening to Murali talk about how he got the film made though was very interesting, he has leesons many up and comming filmmakers could learn from.
Isn't it, though? Where did you see it?
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