Displaying items by tag: Teresa Palmer

2: 22 

Australia/US, 2017, 98 minutes, Colour.

Michiel Huisman, Teresa Palmer, Sam Reid, John Waters, Kerry Armstrong, Maeve Dermody.

Directed by Paul Currie.

While the film is billed as an American science-fiction drama, it is actually an Australian production, filmed in Sydney, most of the cast being Australia. The main exception is the leading man, media house, American.

The film was not successful on its release, billed as the film with the least box office 2017. However, it has had a firmer further life on television and streaming.

Michelle Houston plays an air traffic controller with some kind of psychic powers. However, in cycling through New York City, he has a lot of repetitious, déjà vu sites and experiences, especially at Grant Central Station, and everything, an ageing at the time of 2:22.

He has to give up his traffic controlling work when there is almost an accident – and the encounters a heart dealer, Teresa Palmer, who was on the plane. She also has a boyfriend, an artist, played by Sam Reid, who deals in holograms.

So, while there are the romantic complications in the present as well is the mystery of 222 and the characters and sites that are seen, it then becomes a link to a death 30 years earlier, the day that the two central characters were born, and some kind of dramatic psychic connection between those events and the present.

Which means that the audience does have to pay attention to sort out the various threads of the plot. The film looks quite good, the two central characters sympathetic. A science fiction/fantasy pastime.

1. Silence-fiction? Science fantasy?
2. The Australian production, filming in the US and Australia? American style, Australian supporting cast? The recreation of New York City, apartments, Grand Central station, Kennedy airport and flight control? The musical score?
3. The title, the time, Dylan and his experiences, his interest in stars, constellations? His background, family, training, fear of flying, flight control? His friendships? His hallucinations? Saving the planes from colliding? Being suspended?
4. His life, his apartment, his interests, the encounter with Sarah, his ticket to the aerial ballet, talks with Sarah, the audience having seen her on the plane about to crash? Her life and work, the art gallery, Jonas and his work? Dylan going to the exhibition, the holograms, the characters and situations of his 2:22 situation, his mad outburst and destructive?
5. Travelling in New York City, the camps, the recurring situations, same people, talk, the businessmen, the children, the pregnant woman, 2.22, the electrical fault?
6. The bond with Sarah, the sharing the same birthdate? Dylan and the information about the past, the events it Grand Central, Jake and Evelyn? 30 years earlier, the stars and constellations?
7. Dylan, realising that he and Sarah had to relive the 30 years events of the past, Evelyn as the dead woman, his going to see Catherine her sister, the discussions, Catherine sceptical?
8. Jonas, wanting to go away with Sarah, Dylan and his finding that Jake, the alleged murderer, lived in the apartment, the search, the discovery of the letters, reading the stories? Confiding in Sarah? Her hesitation?
9. The buildup to the climax, the repetition at Grand Central, Jonas, his reliving the murderer, Jake and Evelyn victims, Jonas shooting at Sarah, Dylan intervening and shot, recovering? Jonas shot by the police?
10. The aftermath, happiness, stillness pilot, Sarah and the baby?

ADDITION

Australia, 2024, 91 minutes, Colour.

Teresa Palmer, Joe Dempsie, Eamon Farrow, Sarah Peirse, Adrienne Pickering, Lou Baxter, Sara Newman.

Directed by Marcelle Lunam.

A cinema adaptation of a very popular novel by Australian writer, Tony Jordan, published in 2008.

This is a film about mental health, the focus on a young woman and her continued anxiety, manifesting itself in the condition, arithmomania, an obsessive-compulsive need to count. The audience is introduced to her condition by meeting Grace, Teresa Palmer in an ingratiating and challenging performance, suddenly taking a banana from a customer at the supermarket. She has nine and wants to make an even ten. The customer, Seamus (Joe Dempsie from Game of Thrones) has seen what she has done and challenges her. He later encounters her again and a friendship begins.

The audience is invited to spend a great deal of time with Grace, seeing her tutoring students at school with maths, especially her niece, visits with her sympathetic mother, her demanding lawyer sister, becoming more aware of Grace’s long time problems and the family trying to deal with them.

Then, the audience discovers that she has a long time imaginary friend, in fact, the scientist and entrepreneur, Nicholas Tesla (played by Eamon Farren) his presence in the house, the range of their conversations, the discussions of her problems, happy Times, dancing together, a friend and confidante.

One of the features of the film is that the county is visualised, actual numbers and lists of numbers appearing on screen, some indication of what it is like for Agrees to have this experience of counting and the need for reassurance. She counts tables in restaurants looking for free tables, she counts eyelashes and friends, she counts pieces of cake into numbered portions.

Seamus adapts himself to her counting in their relationship, finding it hard, and the subject sometimes of graces self-justifying taunts. But, on the other hand, she does visit a very sympathetic therapist, who is direct, and Molly Connolly, suggests a program, accepts that categories will turn it will not, but provides a listening sensitivity.

The film runs for 90 minutes, and, perhaps, audiences would have liked some more sequences and time to appreciate what has happened, what is happening in graces day by day life, the nature of the opposition, its effect on her, and the possibilities of future coping with it.

One is tempted to say that the title of the novel and film about mathematics is a plus!

1. A drama about mental health?
2. City setting, Melbourne, and pursuit of the city, homes, flats, school, supermarkets, therapy sessions…? The musical score?
3. Grace and her condition, arithmomania, an obsessive-compulsive need to count? The opening at the supermarket, the tent and a knife or neatness, the visualising of the numbers on the screen, her range of counting, eyelids, pieces of cake…? Her anxieties, security and numbers and counting? Affecting her whole life? Her past, family situation, tragedies and feelings, the character of her mother and her kindness and support, Jill, practical, lawyer, hard, exasperated with Grace? Her niece, talent with numbers, coaching her, the competition and practice?
4. Grace as a mathematician, training, coaching the students, the sessions with them? With her niece? Possibilities for her career as mathematician, the scene of application for further studies?
5. The encounter with Seamus at the supermarket, his conversation about seeing what she did, the arguments about ownership of the banana? The next encounter, the attraction? Grace and her personal life, the response to Seamus, caution, entering the relationship, his response to her?
6. Part of her mental condition was admiration for Tesla, the story of his life and success, his later financial and mental collapse, his death? His appearing to her, a companion for so many years, the domestic scenes, the conversations, his encouragement, the dancing together, her explaining this to the therapist? Her finally having to let him go?
7. The development of the relationship with Seamus, together, sexual, emotional? The effect on him? The effect on her, the combat compatibility of the relationship with her condition?
8. The test, but forgetting, Seamus taking her, her apologies, her knees, the drinking, the escapade with her friends, her mother upset, the reaction to Grace?
9. Grace, the difficulties with Seamus, her being demanding, self-centred, alienating him? His absence? The lookalike and the girl at the supermarket and graces reaction?
10. The scenes with the therapist, coming and going, the patients and the therapist, sympathetic, clear, medication, the body issues, exercise? The effect, stopping the medication? The return to the therapist?
11. Encountering Seamus, his background, England, artist, age, the effect of Greece?
12. Audience identification with Grace, as a person, her condition, yet siding with the therapist, sympathy but challenge?