Strange Planet (1999)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Emma-Kate Croghan

Writers:

Stavros Kazantzidis (story)
Stavros Kazantzidis (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

7 October 1999 (Australia)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

3 girls. 3 guys. 365 days to get it together.

Plot:

This romantic comedy takes place over the course of one year - opening on New Year's Eve of one year and closing exactly one year later...

Plot Keywords:

Drinking | Costume | Following | Vitamin Pills | Boxing

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Claudia Karvan	...	Judy
Naomi Watts	...	Alice
Alice Garner	...	Sally
Tom Long	...	Ewan
Aaron Jeffery	...	Joel
Felix Williamson	...	Neil
Hugo Weaving	...	Steven
Rebecca Frith	...	Amanda
Marshall Napier	...	Robert
Loene Carmen	...	Amy
Heidi McDonald	...	Bridget
Harry Cripps	...	Paul
Rebel Penfold-Russell	...	Producer
Hugh Baldwin	...	Bob
Helen Thomson	...	Lulu

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:MA | New Zealand:M | UK:15 | Argentina:16 | Canada:14A (Ontario)

Company:

Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC)

Quotes:

Ewan: I'd tell my friend it's a risky game falling in love with a married man, and that if you play tennis with the devil, you can't complain if he cheats.

Movie Connections:

References Taxi Driver (1976)

Soundtrack:

Je suis à toi

Has some charm of it's own but it's hard to overlook how much it rips off other films

In Australia, New Year finds two different groups of friends, 3 men and 3 women, begin their years in a variety of different ways, however each has ambitions and resolutions relating to their love lives. However, during the course of the following year things don't go quite as they would have foreseen or hoped in most cases.

This film relates to the topic that is hardly new ground - that of love and relationships in our modern age. In the same way, the manner in which the film tells it's story will also seem like it's not doing anything new in a new way, for it isn't. The film homage's (or rips off) several recent (at the time) films such as Shallow Grave and Trainspotting for it's visual style as well as other `youf' romantic comedies for it's content (as well as a seemingly pointless venture off into Taxi Driver territory that does nothing but prove the writers once watched Taxi Driver!).

However, having said that, it still does manage to be quite entertaining and have it's own rough bit of charm to it. It isn't really very funny at any point but it does manage to be quite realistically downbeat without being totally depressing. If anything this rather bleak view of relationships is quite realistic and refreshingly honest - a shame then that it goes and plumps for a happy ending of sorts which relies on coincidence and the usual unlikely devices of romantic comedies. The characters are not that well drawn but they have enough realism to them to make them recognisable and their problems and experiences also relatable. Having 2 groups of 3 character does overstretch the film somewhat though, and some issues are not really dealt with in any meaningful way (an attempted rape just seems to happen without any follow up for instance), but on the whole it works reasonably well.

I'm not sure if the cast are well known in Australia, but I had never seen any of them before (with the exception of Watts and Weaving of course). This helped the characters a bit, as I only knew them as who they were playing. Some of the male actors struggled a bit and it is the three female leads that have the best parts - Watts and Karvan having the meatier characters but Garner being cute, sexy and fun!

Overall this film is not original or different from many other films you could see, but it's bleak view of modern relationships is interesting and involving (until it blows it) and the characters were recognisable enough to involve me in the film for the duration.