I'm a soft marker. It's two hours long and they could have lost that last ten minute sequence of seeing the characters as middle aged, which looks silly (I think he wanted to keep the admittedly funny recreation of the sort of shows he did in the 70s which feature his mates like Phil Scott and Kate Fitzpatrick) and maybe a bit elsewhere, but it needed time for that melancholic sweep Ellis was going for.
I don't think people went because even in 1993 the Ellis character was a sex pest, stalking Miranda Otto and cajoling Alice Garner into sex which she clearly wasn't in to (maybe it was better to not see her character again just to hear about her having a breakdown), and planting kisses on women and the jokes about rape. It is true to character, and men at the time, it can just be a drag.
I enjoyed a lot of this. The recreation of life at Sydney Uni in the 1960s, and the flashbacks to Adventist camp. It's cast beautifully on the whole - Noah Taylor's geekiness makes Ellis more appealing and he's very good; Miranda Otto is lovely (I did feel bad for her doing nude scenes with Bob over in the corner drooling... I'm sure he drooled at all other young women); Jack Campbell is raw but has handsomeness and swagger; the little turns from people like Arthur Dignam, Colin Friels and Tony Llewellyn Jones are first rate; Alice Garner and Lucy Bell are perfect; the smaller roles are well cast like Janette Cronin. Ellis is comfortable in the 50s and 60s and the decent budget gives it a polished sheen.
Look it's flawed, Ellis is a sleaze, but some of it is warm and funny and it does have a soul and point of view.
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