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Rating:  -
Little fish is about a woman trying to escape her past and get on with her life. Tracey, a former heroin addict, finds it hard to break her shackles and find her independance that she so desperately wants. Being in her 30's, still living with her mum and brother dealing with the return of her ex-boyfriend after a 4 year abscense and trying to help her drug addicted step father kick his habit, only add to all the frustrations Tracey (played by Blanchett) feel in her life. With little glimmer of hope, the banks keep refusing to loan her money to kick start her own business and a second chance for a new life, you can see Tracey become more and more frustrated and angry as the story progresses. Director Rowan Woods develops a background of all the characters brilliantly, but doesn't really take the script anywhere. Best known for his work on the play, "the boys", Woods doesn't seem able to take the script by Jacquelin Perske anywhere, it just kind of sits dormant.
The script centre's around the lead character, plated brilliantly by Cate Blanchett, it is worth seeing the movie for her performance alone. With an ensemble cast including Hugo Weaving, Sam Neill, Martin Henderson, Lisa McCune, Noni Hazlehurst and Susie Porter, it is a who's who of Australian cinema. The chemistry between Blanchett and Henderson, as her brother is outstanding and it is these two characters that carry the film. Henderson's charcter Ray is fighting demons of his own, having lost his leg in car accident caused by Jonny, Tracey's ex boyfriend, who's return opens old wounds that seem to affect every character, especially Tracey and Ray's mum, played by Noni Hazlehurst.
Set in and around Cabramatta, a violent and drug riddled suburb of south-western Sydney, this is a tense, often depressing drama, that is slow at times, but moving and powerful. Probably about 20 minutes too long, the ending is slightly disappointing and leaves too many issues unresolved and up in the air. There seems little closure for the charcters involved and you are left wondering if there was a happy ending or a tragic one.
The music and cinematography is good, the acting is excellent, but overall I couldn't help but be a little disappointed after watching it. Certainly not as good as woods previous effort, 'the boys'.
Rating:  -
Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and Sam Neil are great actors. Unfortunately their combined talents weren't able to rescue this slow moving, pointless and boring movie, or at least that's how I'd describe the first 20 minutes. I gave up watching it at that point. Maybe the movie magically turns into this critically acclaimed wunderfest after that.
Rating:  -
This is one of the few Cate's Aussie production since she shot to fame after the reign of Elizabeth. The production has a solid cast with Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Martin Henderson together with a great local cast including Noni Hazzlehurst, Sam Neil and Susie Potter.
The story set in the Vietnamese area of Cabramatta in western Sydney, an area most well know about the gangsters and unique Vietnamese culture. Cate plays a heroin addict turned video shop manager who tried to go up the rank by partnering with her boss to extend the shop's business. However, it is because of her will to live a new life that brought back the pass to haunt her even more. Her family is dysfunctional, largely due to the introduction of heroine into the family by the veteran addict and ex rugby league star (come on it's Australian, so rugby league is an obvious choice) played by Hugo Weaving. Because of him, Cate was addicted and needed to go through a tedious home cleansing procedure to rid of her addiction, and her mother was her key to suuccess. Because of Hugo, Cate's brother played by Martin Henderson lost his feet in a car crash because he was high with his friend and Cate's ex-boyfriend Justin Ngyun (of 21 Jump Steet). There is no doubt that Hugo loves Cate and Noni, but Noni could never forgive Hugo's doing in the past. To make it more complicated, Hugo was involved in a same sex relationship with his ex-manager played by Sam Neil. The relationships among this bunch of people just tangled on in the movie.
Little Fish literally means the fish shaped soya sauce containers used for hold drugs in the movie. However, the plot was far from simple. The whole production is very heavy and reminds you about movies like 21 Grams and Requiem of a Dream, but with a strong Australian touch. The setting in Cabramatta actually gave the movie a strong sense of presence and made the characters more believable. However, the pace of the movie, as with most Australian movies were very dragging at certain parts and the lack of strong motives for certain characters actually undermined the movie alot.
Performance-wise, Cate's did a great job but there were no surprises because it's now expected for her to do a good job. But she did shed all her glamour and put on a good show for the movie. In fact as the character that tied every other characters in the movie together, she is great and provided the necessary beats for the movie. Hugo Weaving and Noni Hazzlehurst are easily the two other cast members who outshines everyone in the movie. This is mostly due to they got some of the best roles. Hugo is very believable in his performance although sometimes you couldn't figure out why he is an ex-rugby star for his built. Noni Hazzlehurst is great and all the scenes between her and Cate are the reasons for you to hang on to the movie because you do care about the development of their mother-daughter relationship. Martin Henderson and Justin Ngyun didn't really shine mostly because of the lack of depth in their character. Martin put down his pretty face for more serious role but he role itself doesn't have enough weight to initiate a transformation for him. Justin's character was just mediocre.
Without a doubt, Little Fish is one of the better recent Australian productions in the recent years. However, as a production, it still suffers the problem of most Australian movies nowadays - a solid and attention gripping way of story telling, and the indulgence of over the top serious dramatic lines. Without a doubt, with limited budgets for all Australian movies nowadays, there are lots of things that can't be done as their Hollywood counterparts, however, a tight plot with substance is what we need. Crash and Brokeback Mountain didn't really have astronomical budgets but they managed to hit through the heart of the audience because of the story telling, and that's what modern Australian movies need to work hard on. Nonetheless, the saving grace is the movie got a great cast that managed to bring the experience through to the audience. Another recent production Jindabyne is less lucky in all departments. So if you enjoy Australian movie and love Cate, this is a movie that you can watch. You won't be too disappointed but at the same time you won't be excited either. It could be a good Saturday night stay home movie.
Rating:  -
Brilliant and disturbingly honest
Cate Blanchett gives a sterling performance as Tracy Heart, a young woman struggling to reinvent herself beyond her drug-related, criminal past by managing a local video store.
But Heart is tied to, and trapped in her past, partly by circumstance (her heroin addicted father and alcoholic mother) and partly by a series of her own bad choices. Her inner and outer struggles; the battle between doing what is best for her versus what she wants (ex boyfriend Johnny) which put her constantly in a state of limbo, swimming to nowhere. Her desire for a future combined with her inability to get a bank loan to get started; wanting more, wanting better, to do better and have better, yet her inherently tragic, drug-laden environment continues to ensnarl her despite her best efforts to stay clean. The constant self-sabotage even as she helps others - and not knowing how to help herself--make her the beautifully complex, tragic character we can all identify with.
The fractured life of Tracy Heart is echoed beautifully in the smashing of the photographs of children, the breaking glass, the breaking vase, the constant breaking - everything is breaking down around her, and her sad, broken and dysfunctional life leads her back to the only place where she can find peace and serenity; the swimming pool. The swimming serves as another poetically sharp contrast to the madness of her drug-infected life, swimming back and forth, back forth, going nowhere.
Blanchett is outstanding, and her ability to capture the inner complexities of Tracy Heart is a truly memorable performance right to the end - and then she returns to her childhood beach, and to happier, less complicated days, where we see her bring her father to rest, with a fly on his face.
Come to think of it, we are all little fish, really, swimming in a great big pond, trying to make sense of it all.
Rating: -
Little Fish is a movie that I've been waiting to see. I finally got to see it last night. It lived up to my expectations and was much more exciting then I thought it would be. Performances from Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill, Martin Henderson, and Dustin Nguyen were great (as expected), but the real stars of the movie were Hugo Weaving as the washed up drug addict and Noni Hazlehurst as the concerned mother. The storyline was complex and entertaining and the dialogue was incredibly executed by the writers and delivered by the actors with power and emotion. The cinematography was also nice taking after some of the other films made recently like "Crash" and "Collateral." It also delves into the very serious subject of drug addiction and handles it with a very rough, gritty look. The Soundtrack is another great feature and gives a sound of it being played under water so it has a kind of murky sound to it. Rent this one if you want to see a terrific film, but be warned that it is extremely depressing.
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