Caterpillar Wish

Synopsis: During the wintry months in a South Australian coastal town, 17-year-old Emily (Victoria Thaine) searches for her father. She has been raised by her single mother, Susan (Susie Porter), a local topless waitress and led to believe her father was a one-night stand, a passing tourist. Emily is convinced he is a local and spends much of her time quietly photographing men in search for the face of her father. She tracks down her estranged grandparents to gain information and stalks the local womanizing copper Carl (Philip Quast) - the man her search reveals is HIM. If true, this would make her secret boyfriend Joel (Khan Chittenden) her half brother, and sets off a potentially scandalous small-town drama.

Caterpillar Wish is a fairly gentle drama in which we are set up to expect more serious events to be unveiled than actually occur in the story. As the truth is revealed through a cloud of secrets closely held, we get the feeling that things just are how they are. Even though we see glimpses of family suicide, potential questions of incest and pedophilia, marriage break-ups from serial infidelity and emotional abuse, the film nonetheless maintains a low-key tone and its avoidance of subplots culminating in any real dramatic climaxes feels somewhat refreshing, although it might for some feel like it falls short of its potential in this regard.

Though it may not answer all our questions; and some characters may feel a bit unconvincing, the film certainly looks and feels beautiful. It allows us to settle into the sleepy seaside town, happy to linger awhile. We are given a different sense of time and space and might even be lured into trading our own hectic city life for a quiet evening relaxing on a garden swing; or sensing the water lapping at the nearby shore - were it not for the issues of small-town prejudice and incestuously-close relationships between locals.

Suzie Porter delivers a mature and mostly believable performance as Emily’s mother; though I question her taking a swig of morning gin and wonder whether her character as a topless waitress is believable given her affluent background. I also question the proximity of her parents and would like to have understood the hinted-at complexity of her grandfather. Victoria Thaine’s playing of Emily is spot-on, were it not for a sense of similarity to other coming-of-age Australian films, and I would like to have felt more for her relationship with Joel. Stephen (Robert Mammone), a grieving local boatman who lost his wife and child to family suicide and with whom Emily is trying to set her mother up, though a pleasure to watch, typifies the film’s overall handling of its story - an array of lightly touched-on narrative elements which we watch with interest, even enjoyment, though they may not clearly serve to drive the main theme of the film to a satisfying resolution.

 

 

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