SYNOPSIS:
After
years of treading water in her career and redeeming herself
after a troubled past Tracy Heart (Blanchett) sets a goal of
owning her own business. But the return of her ex-boyfriend
and the criminal intentions of her brother threaten to tear
apart her goals and test her relationship to her mother. Will
her dreams be enough to start a new life?
MOVIE REVIEW:
You’ve probably had one of those days when
you thought to yourself: "How can anyone possibly lead
a more miserable life than me? How can anyone possibly be
more messed up than me?" When things get this bad, you’ll
probably pop a movie like this one into your player to realize
that there is a possibility that there is someone out there
who is leading a more troubled life than you.
Academy
Award winner Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, The Aviator) plays
a woman whose terrible past won't let her go. The long suffering
woman has spent years recovering from her heroin addiction
and in the eyes of her mother, she is redeeming herself. As
if this isn’t a whole load of trouble already, she is
entangled in the complex relationships within her family.
No, that’s not the end of the list, because her ex boyfriend
returns unexpectedly and her world is thrown into further
chaos. The poor woman has to face her brother who is up to
no good, a drug junkie ex boyfriend, a criminal boss –
how can she overcome all these to love and lead a new life
again?
This
is one serious drama which you’d expect to see stellar
performances from its cast. Blanchett is a natural choice
when it comes to emotionally demanding roles like this. And
she delivers an intense performance that you’ll not
easily forget. Also giving powerfully fierce performances
are Sam Neill (Jurassic Park), Hugo Weaving (The Matrix) and
Vietnamese actor Dustin Nguyen (The Rebel). It’s nice
to see these actors playing these roles because we seem to
know them for their household roles as the dinosaur hunting
adventurer (Neill) and the evil agent who hunts down Neo (Weaving).
The
other thing that grips you about this Rowan Woods (Winged
Creatures) directed picture is its honesty. The Australian
filmmaker manages to bring out the best of his cast to make
this film from Down Under an emotionally engaging experience
– other than the all round powerful acting, the story
written by Jacqueline Perske will leave you thinking about
how we cope with our own lives, some better than the others
when times get tough. The analogy of the title "Little
Fish" portrays an interesting image of how this small
and modest creature swims around the big confusing oceans
to continue its survival.
And
trust us, at the end of this 114 minute movie, there seems
to be a light at the end of the tunnel we can swim towards
to.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
Although this is a 2005 Australian film released
here recently, this Code 3 DVD contains some fair bit bonus
features. There is an Audio Commentary with director
Rowan Woods, and wasting no time to PR with the viewers,
Woods goes straight into the insightful commentary with his
deep and engaging voice. He talks about the reason why he
bookends this picture, and why melancholic music and sound
design is used. Behind the Scenes is a 20
minute featurette where we hear the cast and crew talk about
the inspiration of creating the female protagonist’s
troubled life. Blanchett discusses the challenges of playing
such a emotionally demanding role. There is a nice segment
towards the end where you see the children choir recording
one of the film’s unforgettable tunes. There are seven
minutes worth of Deleted Scenes which do
not seem to add much consequence to the movie. But it’s
still nice to see the crew in action, nonetheless. The
Trailer is also included on the disc.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The disc’s visual transfer enhances the melancholic
feel of the movie, while the English audio track is available
in 5.1 Dolby Digital or 2.0 Stereo.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
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