Sweetie - Criterion Collection
by Jane Campion
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dorothy Barry, Genevi?ve Lemon, Jon Darling, Karen Colston, Tom LycosDirector: Jane Campion
Brand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-10-24
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Sweetie - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: Black, black, black humor.
Summary: 4 Stars
Sweetie (Jane Campion, 1989)/Passionless Moments (Jane Campion, 1983)
Sweetie is the type of comedy I would write if I wrote comedies-- relentlessly black, full of subversive moments, and deeply, deeply twisted. Barrel of monkeys? I scoff at your fun!
Kay (Karen Colston) is rather mousy, introverted, and not terribly happy in her relationship with Louis (Tom Lycos), whom she lands after consulting a fortune-teller. Not the best start to a relationship, one would think (and one would be right). Still, Kay and Louis are content, in their own miserable way, until Sweetie shows up. Sweetie (Genevieve Lemon) is Kay's younger sister, and she's well, I believe the technical term is "crazy as a loon". No one but Kay, however, seems capable of seeing this; her parents just see her as slightly eccentric, though still their darling baby daughter. Louis is oddly entranced by her. Gordon (Jon Darling), her manager/boyfriend, is convinced she'll be the one to finally net him some success, and he's not put off by the fringe benefits of managing her, most of which he reaps between the sheets. Loudly. As Sweetie slips farther and farther round the bend, though, the rest of the family does come to see that, perhaps, there might be something wrong; unfortunately, no one's equipped to deal with this new perception, and anything that can go wrong, etc.
I should probably insert some sort of warning about triggering conversations/behaviors, but that's kind of the point of the movie, isn't it? This is supposed to push your buttons (in much the same way that Very Bad Things did a few years later). And it does a very good job of it; the movie was castigated and/or damned with faint praise when it appeared, though it has since been recognized as a classic in the making given some of Campion's later output (e.g., The Piano). Campion, who both wrote and directed, is a twisted genius with a camera here; all you can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. And I highly recommend you do so.
I wouldn't normally review a thirteen-minute film, but Passionless Moments, which can be found in Sweetie's DVD extras, is on Jonathan Rosenbaum's list of the thousand best films ever made, so I should probably give it a paragraph. A short made by Campion in 1983, Passionless Moments takes a number of disparate scenes and puts them together. Each of them is oddly familiar, things you've done or wondered about yourself, but presented from odd angles, or with weird cuts; it's as if Roald Dahl got inside your skull and started writing Tales of the Unexpected straight out of your subconscious. It's absolutely worth your time, and is worth the cost of buying the Sweetie DVD by itself. **** (for both).
Summary of Sweetie - Criterion Collection
Though she followed it with a string of brilliant films, Jane Campion will always be remembered for the shock and delight of her stunning debut feature, Sweetie. Campion focuses her askew, discerning lens on the hazardous relationship between the buttoned-down, superstitious Kay and her rampaging, devil-may-care sister, "Sweetie," and by extension, their entire family's profoundly rotten roots. A feast of distinctly framed photography and captivating, idiosyncratic characters, Sweetie heralded the emergence of this enormously gifted director as well as the breakthrough of Australian cinema, which would take international film by storm in the Nineties.Chock full of director Jane Campion's trademark sensitivity, her debut, Sweetie, is slyly emotional without sentimentality. In this family drama, Kay (Karen Colston) stars as a prudish, confused loner, who chooses her mate, Louis (Tom Lycos), based on the shape of the mole on his face. As a couple, they lack passion, due to Kay's fear of the erotic. Once her mentally ill sister, Dawn, a.k.a. Sweetie (Genevieve Lemon) comes to visit, the viewer understands that Kay's temperance has evolved out of her wish to tame her wild sister. As Kay's parents weather turbulence, and after Sweetie suffers a tragic fate, Kay's happiness becomes less and less tangible, until she realizes the basic human need for love. Campion embellishes this story of disconnection with camera shots that feel lonesome; a scene in which Kay and Louis swim is shot from across the body of water, at the water's eye level. An old-fashioned setting, at least in Kay's home, mocks the idea of a functional nuclear family. On every level, Sweetie is crafted by its tone, one of melancholy infused with hope, making it not only Campion's best film, but also a clear selection for the Criterion Collection. --Trinie Dalton
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