David Williamson rejuvenated his playwriting career with a trilogy of plays centered around conferencing, of this was the first. It's really a piece for the theatre, taking place in real time and one set, or a telemovie - but having said that it's good to see it done well (directed by Michael Rymer) with a strong cast.
Matthew Newton's casting as the mediator gives the piece unexpected resonance in the scenes where he deals with a character unable to control his violent temper; Luke Ford over acts too much as the dimwitted said violent temper character (far too many ticks and bits in his performance); Sigrid Thornton's botox is as ever distracting but she does solid work in a thankless Williamson role (a bossy married woman whose husband is cheating on her); so too do Vince Colosimo (another Williamson archetype: ruthless businessman), especially Laura Gordon (yet another: hot young thing who can't resist the sexual lure of a married middle aged man), Robert Rabiah, Lauren Clair and Christopher Connolly. Josh Saks has a fairly thankless role as Ford's best friend.
In some ways this piece reminded me of The Inspector Calls - we are all responsible for each other. It has a solid, small "l" liberal humanistic wish fulfilment values (i.e. the world would get along better if bosses cut their wages and gave their employees a raise, were nicer to the brain injured and new Australians, we don't need that much money)... but you know, they're all fair points.
And the movie is, like the play, well structured and deals with important issues. It's not as emotionally devastating as A Conversation, the second in the trilogy, but it at least makes you think and keeps you watching, and good on Rymer for coming home and making it.
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