Sweetie (Drama)
Director: Jane Campion
Producer: John Maynard,Billy Mackinnon
Screenwriter: Gerard Lee,Jane Campion
Cinematographer: Sally Bongers
Composer: Martin Amiger
Editor: Veronika Jenet
Production Designer: Peter Harris
Costume Designer: Amanda Lovejoy
Key Cast: Dorothy Barry,Karen Colston,Tom Lycos,Michael Lake,Jon Darling,Geneviève Lemon
Revered filmmaker Jane Campion’s audacious theatrical debut feature, now restored in 4K, is a delightfully strange portrait of a dysfunctional family.
Anxiety-riddled Kay shacks up with her once-engaged colleague, Louis, who meets the description of the stranger foretold in the tea leaves. Their relationship is marred by a sense of unease and intimacy issues, however; and if that wasn’t bad enough, her sister Dawn soon comes tumbling back into her life unannounced. With her brash and unpredictable behaviour, Dawn – or ‘Sweetie’, to their father – is the crux of the family’s dysfunction, pushing Kay and her parents to their limits in her quest for attention and connection.
Acclaimed director Jane Campion’s (An Angel at My Table, MIFF 1990) Cannes-premiering first theatrical feature is memorable by virtue of the unexpected. The film’s titular character (played by frequent Campion collaborator Geneviève Lemon) doesn’t arrive until almost halfway through, veering the narrative off course; cinematographer Sally Bongers favours offbeat angles and experimental composition, broken by occasional dreamlike sequences; and much of the score is a gospel choir. Shot from an AFI Award–winning screenplay written with fellow film school alum Gerard Lee, who would go on to co-script Top of the Lake, Sweetie is a characteristically compelling entry in Campion’s impressive canon of intricate female characters wrestling with love and desire.
“Warm, intense and wickedly funny … the announcement of a singular, smashing talent.” – Los Angeles Times.
Presented by the National Film and Sound Archive’s digital restoration program, NFSA Restores, reviving our cinema icons.
