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Bookmark this pageCountry Life (1994)
Director: Michael Blakemore
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Blakemore's 'quality' riff on Uncle Vanya is set down under in 1919. Deborah (Scacchi) is the object of desire, the frustrated younger wife of a pompous theatre critic (Blakemore). Returning from London to his stepfamily's ornate ancestral pile in New South Wales, the pair, respectively, spark ardour and resentment in the Anglophile household: Dr Askey (Neill), drinker, pacificist and conservationist, is smitten with Deborah, as is his rival, the nervous, artistic and generous master of the house, Uncle Jack (Hargreaves). Meanwhile, fresh and self-effacing as the critic's abandoned daughter, Fox steals the acting honours. Blakemore introduces some intriguing reflections on colonial coming-of-age, but they are sketched in such bald, symbolic strokes, it feels easy to be ahead of the game. For the rest, there's a lot of the camera gazing on impressive Hunter Valley locations, and a working over of small snobberies, racism and manners in candle-lit dinner scenes. Neill takes Scacchi for a walk in the bush among the rutting 'roos, where he gets - 'Hadn't we better get back!' - to unbuckle her shoe. Well-dressed, entirely respectable drama, but with little cinematic frisson.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Michael Blakemore
Producer: Robin Dalton
Cast: Kerry Fox, Greta Scacchi, Sam Neill, Michael Blakemore, John Hargreaves, Googie Withers, Patricia Kennedy full cast
Duration: 117 mins
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