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Reviews
Sione's Wedding (2006)
awful script
The clichéd Polynesian males drink, fight and make a stream of sexist, stupid and unfunny remarks. Real life Polynesians are much funnier than these stereotyped, cardboard characters. The supposedly Samoan girl didn't look or act Samoan at all, seemed more like the stock white female who has sex with anyone on a whim. With weak as water story lines you can't say anything about the acting - even the most brilliant actors could do nothing with this script. It's sad to see Polynesian actors willing to play such sad stereotypes in a film with not one good scene, and only two or three 'jokes'. What a waste of Kiwi taxpayers' money, what a lost opportunity to make a great film about a vibrant community. It's better not to make movies if they're as bad and mindless as this.
Rain (2001)
A bleak but original and intriguing movie from New Zealand
RAIN is set in New Zealand in the 1970's, but it could be anywhere, anytime. It's a sad tale about a family in the final stage of disintegration. The parents, teenage daughter and young son communicate only in occasional short bursts, so we learn about them from their gestures, actions and facial expressions.
Their summer holiday in a beach-front bach (holiday home) is a paradise gone sour, with the adults drowning their frustrations and disappointments in booze. Even the partying and midnight skinny-dipping isn't much fun seen through this movie's jaundiced lens. Casual, thoughtless flirtations finally lead to tragedy and the innocent suffer most.
The deceptively simple but intriguing story is open to various interpretations, and if you like small scale movies with an original take on life you should enjoy this movie. But don't expect a series of dramatic events, it's a quiet and slow-paced movie with convincing acting reinforced by a low-key sound-track.