Wow... I'm truly stunned at how abysmal this movie really is. Jane Campion tortures both her characters and the audience in this excruciatingly bad black comedy/drama about a - to say the least - dysfunctional family. Comes off as a pretentious film school final project that reeks like a rancid cross-contamination between David Lynch and John Waters. Seemingly random, unengaging and disjointed things just occur (either deadeningly slow or at the tone of loud shouting) in a sordid little universe populated by either repellent loonies or lame wimps that I only wish to disappear from the screen as quickly as possible.
No nuances, no character development, no humor to be found anywhere. In bits, I detect fine cinematography, but even there, it's mostly shot in a way that casts long shadows over the scenes. You'd have to be psychic to spot that this director was to make the masterpiece "The Piano" some years to follow. One of the easiest bottom scores of 1/10 I've ever handed out.
No nuances, no character development, no humor to be found anywhere. In bits, I detect fine cinematography, but even there, it's mostly shot in a way that casts long shadows over the scenes. You'd have to be psychic to spot that this director was to make the masterpiece "The Piano" some years to follow. One of the easiest bottom scores of 1/10 I've ever handed out.