Film Review - Palm Beach (2019)

Palm Beach is written and directed by Rachel Ward and stars her husband Bryan Brown and their daughter Matilda as well as Sam Neill, Richard E Grant, Greta Scacchi and Jacqueline McKenzie among others who come to Palm Beach on the Northern Shore of Sydney to celebrate Richard (Bryan Brown) and his Birthday but in these kinds of celebrations all sorts of secrets can come tumbling out.

Plam Beach reeks of that family (Bryan, Rachel and Matilda) having an idea for a movie, casting a lot of their mates and then filming their good time for what they hope will be our amusement and well it isn’t any of our fucking amusement as I just sat there goddamned bored almost the entire time it was being played in front of me.

And the main reason I was so damn bored is that I just didn’t really care about any of the characters this wonderful cast of actors some of which have starred in huge favorites of mine and their struggles and some of the struggles they do talk about (Loss, Regret, Failure among others) are very human traits that people feel in their daily life especially as they get older but amongst this picturesque setting of what really feels like an Island off the coast of Sydney its hard to care as a lot of the drama just feels so fucking monotonous.

And when you think about the best of Australian Cinema it works because those who really get something out of it have that feeling because they feel like something of themselves and their life is being reflected in front of them on that big cinema screen and even Danger Close about brave ANZAC soldiers fighting insurmountable odds makes sense as does movies like Mad Max, Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla, Strictly Ballroom and even Romper Stomper.

Those movies to name as a few examples were either action films that tapped into Car Culture, movies that tapped into the working class at a time of a deep recession or where the perception of Homosexuality in the community was starting to shift more positive and it makes this movie feel like a step back in a big way as Palm Beach is so isolated from the rest of Australia its hard to sit in somewhere like Country South Australia where I saw it and come to care all that much.

And so that was Palm Beach a movie that just bored me no end and I don’t want to talk about anymore, 1 out of 5.