A British Australian American mystery thriller directed by Jane Campion, starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
A teacher gets involved with a detective after he thinks she might be a witness to a murder. She thinks that he might be the murderer because of a tattoo on his wrist.
This was not so great. The plot was really muddy and not clearly presented, but what was there was not very interesting. The characters were a little shallow, but the detective showed more depth than I thought he would as the plot progressed. There was a variety of camera-work going on as well as editing. My favorite was a dream sequence involving the main character's parents ice skating. There was far too much whisper acting going on. The sister was using "eigh" vowel replacements constantly and most of her dialogue was slurred gibberish. It wasn't really bad, but it sure wasn't good. I rate this poor. You probably should not watch it.
A biography directed by Jane Campion.The life of author, Janet Frame is shown. Janet grows up in New Zealand and goes to college before being admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she is driven insane. When she gets out, she goes to Spain and has a brief affair with an American, then goes to London.The style was really good and the camera-work was creative instead of destructive. The main character was portrayed very well and they picked good actresses to play her at various times in her life. The only thing that I had problems with was that it lacked continuity. There were giant time leaps here and there which disrupted the flow. I'm rating it awesome for style.
A drama directed by Jane Campion, starring Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel.A girl takes a trip to India and has a spiritual experience that causes her to convert to Hinduism. Her family thinks that she has joined a cult and they call in an expert to deprogram her.The plot and characters were good and I liked the psychological roleplay of the 2 main characters. The sparse use of special effects meets my approval as well. The closed minded family was a little humorous. I'm rating it adequate.
A drama directed by Jane Campion.A mute pianist is wed to an American man and brings her daughter and piano with her. She is supposed to give lessons to a man who has the piano at his hut, but he just ends up molesting her and she eventually falls in love with him instead of her husband.I've felt the pain of being away from something that I need and it will drive a person to do unreasonable things. The husband really overreacted about his wife's infidelity when he chopped her finger off. At the end I was really hoping that the woman would drown with the piano and was disappointed when she surfaced. Overall, I thought it was alright and the music was good, so I'm rating it worthy.
