Bliss

Lawrence's adaptation of Peter Carey's novel in no way pants after American prototypes. Part surrealist comedy and part mid-life crisis drama, its madcap energy and anarchic intelligence put it in a class of its own. Harry Joy (Otto), rich advertising executive, is loved by everyone except his wife, who is having an affair with his partner and best friend. Harry only discovers this after a four-minute clinical death from a heart attack, when he begins to see his life in perspective: his marriage is in ruins, his son swaps drugs for sex from his daughter, all around him people are dying of cancer, and his wife has him committed to an asylum. Then into his life steps the young and beautiful Honey (Jones), and the sweet-toothed Harry falls in love as she beckons him into the bush and a back-to-nature idyll. Witty and profoundly enjoyable.