This is a very interesting film. It is taken from a novel that won a prestigious prize. Can I admit that I really enjoyed this film, while admitting that nothing _really_ happens? There are no car chases, or gun-fights. I don't even think I remember any fist-fights. Nora and her daughter meet and interact with interesting, intelligent, troubled people in Australia in the seventies.
Nora is under-employed in the alternative music business. Her main squeeze (Colin Friels) is under-employed as a sometime actor in small theatre. She shares a number of households with other single parents. She tries to raise her kid, and still have some self-fulfilment.
Let me warn you, don't make the mistake of inviting people over to watch this film with you, without warning them to ignore the blurb on the video-box. The last time I rented this film I invited a bunch of people over to watch a double bill: the Merchant-Ivory film "Slaves of New York" and "Monkey Grip". Everyone enjoyed SONY. But everyone left without watching MG. After they left I took a look at the box. It made MG sound like a porno movie. It described Colin Friels character, the heroine's main squeeze, as "sexually volcanic" whatever that means. BS of course. And the blurb writer omits the much more interesting item that he is a junkie. Very embarrassing. In truth MG wasn't any more erotic than Slaves of New York.