Dead Man's Shoes

If revenge truly is a dish best served cold, the lead character of Dead Man’s Shoes is perfectly suited to the task. The movie focuses on one man’s quest to pay back a group of low-level hoodlums for their mistreatment of his mentally handicapped brother. Paddy Considine plays the protective brother and also co-wrote the script, and while he’s far from a household name in the US he puts in a bravura performance here that goes a long way towards removing him from the “that guy in that movie” column of co-starring roles to well-deserved lead status.

Considine’s character Richard has been away from home serving his country in the military, and in his absence his highly impressionable little brother has been adopted as a mascot by a local gang of drug dealers. They take him under their wings, allow him to hang out with them, but generally mistreat and degrade him as frequently as possible. He’s powerless to escape the situation as he seems to crave their attention and companionship in the absence of his protective brother, and his mental deficiencies prevent him from grasping the true nature of their dysfunctional relationship. His interactions with the gang are shown as flashbacks throughout the film, but the main story arc begins with Richard’s return home after leaving the military.

Upon his return, Richard begins making a nuisance of himself to the local hoods, shadowing and occasionally confronting them for no apparent reason. We’re gradually clued in that he’s not happy about how they treated his brother, but the severity of the situation isn’t made clear until well after Richard begins systematically executing every member of the gang. The murders are fairly gruesome, but they’re not played for horror and Richard never seems like a terrifying boogeyman, just a man on a mission. In other words, don’t let the spooky silhouette of the axe murderer on the movie poster lead you to believe this is a horror film.

The film is not without its faults in both structure and technical details. From a technical standpoint, the sound is far from stellar due to muddled speech recording coupled with frequently invasive soundtrack volume levels contributing to make the extremely thick British accents even more incomprehensible for us Yanks. Subtitles would be welcome to fully grasp everything going on, but luckily much of the dialogue seems to be ad lib and non-essential to following the story.

As for structure, the use of incomplete and chaotic flashbacks to convey the back story leaves enough gaps in the central plot that viewers are left questioning Richard’s motivation for murder until the final 15 minutes of the film. The flashback device is simply not effective, especially due to the amateurish use of handheld super 8 black and white footage to set the scenes apart from the present day.

About those final 15 minutes though: they more than make up for the mess leading up to them as everything snaps into focus. Richard’s heartbreak and regret are overpowering in the waning minutes, and the strength of Considine’s performance makes them absolutely essential viewing, redeeming the entire production.

Somersault

Heidi is a troubled teenage girl on the run from a bad situation at home. Joe is an emotionally stunted twenty-something on the run from his feelings. When these two unbalanced individuals meet, the outcome doesn’t appear to be promising, but it does make for compelling viewing.

Heidi longs for love and acceptance, and she’s willing to look in all the wrong places to find it. As the movie opens, she makes a successful pass at her mother’s boyfriend, much to the dismay of mom when she walks in on them. Rather than try to work things out at home, she immediately runs away and ends up in a small, remote ski resort town called Jindabyne. She doesn’t really know anyone there, but in her immature mind she hopes to find immediate employment from a businessman who gave her his card once upon a time (most likely hoping to score). Of course the businessman claims complete ignorance when she calls, especially when his wife answers the call at first, so she’s left in the middle of nowhere with no money or shelter. What’s a pretty and confused girl to do in such a situation? Hit the local bar and shack up with the first guy who notices her. He quickly ditches her the following morning, so she’s back on her own, but through a series of lucky breaks she eventually finds employment at the local mini market, accommodations at a hotel with a very kindly proprietor, and companionship with local boy Joe.

The town of Jindabyne isn’t exactly the Outback, but it is practically the middle of nowhere with no discernible reason for existence other than its scenic lake and gateway location to the neighboring Thredbo ski resort and surrounding Kosciusko National Park. It’s a fairly insular community due to its small size, so when Heidi shows up looking to make a go of things there long term she’s met with some amount of skepticism. While Heidi might have blended in seamlessly in a larger, more metropolitan area, she’s a definite novelty in Jindabyne, adding more of a sense of isolation to her already fragile emotional state.

When Joe enters her life, she opens up to him completely and hopes for the same intimacy in return. Unfortunately, Joe is not willing to appear vulnerable at all, so he keeps her at arm’s length and occasionally ignores her completely. He has feelings for her, he’s just not capable of letting down his defenses. This leads to more desperation from Heidi, more drama for both of them, and sets up the overly tidy resolution of the film.

It’s difficult to rave about Somersault since it doesn’t cover anything we haven’t already seen on screen many times before. While it is an intriguing character study of a life in crisis, there’s not much more to the paper-thin plot. The film swept Australia’s version of the Oscars during its release in 2004, but the competitive field was admittedly weak due to a dearth of Australian film production in the past few years. The US distributor has wisely downplayed the film’s award pedigree, keeping the focus firmly on the characters and the small, independent nature of its production.

Heidi is played to perfection by Abbie Cornish, but it’s hard to care about what happens to the character since she’s not all that memorable to begin with, just confused and borderline self-destructive. This was a big career break for her though and we will see more of her in the years to come, so far most notably opposite Heath Ledger in the upcoming Candy. Sam Worthington plays Joe but doesn’t get much mileage out of his stoic and guarded character in spite of slight chinks in his façade enabled by constant alcohol consumption. The rest of the supporting cast is strictly peripheral scenery for the leads, with only a kind hotel owner offering anything memorable to the proceedings.

This is the debut feature from writer/director Cate Shortland, and it shows, with a propensity for out of focus, pseudo-artistic shots inserted between key scenes and needless subplots such as Abbie’s attempt at friendship with a co-worker and most of Joe’s life away from her. With that said, she does a fine job of eliciting and capturing a strong performance from Cornish and expertly conveys the isolation of the film’s surroundings, and it will be interesting to see how she develops in the future.