My First Wife (1984)

Director:

Paul Cox

Writers:

Paul Cox (written by)
Bob Ellis (written by)

Release Date:

13 September 1984 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Awards:

4 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

John Hargreaves	...	John
Wendy Hughes	...	Helen
Lucy Angwin	...	Lucy
David Cameron	...	Tom
Anna Maria Monticelli	...	Hilary
Betty Lucas	...	Helen's Mother
Lucy Uralov	...	John's Mother
Robin Lovejoy	...	Helen's father
Charles 'Bud' Tingwell	...	Helen's Father
Jon Finlayson	...	Bernard
Julia Blake	...	Kirstin
Ron Falk	...	Psychiatrist
Xenia Groutas	...	John's Sister
Reg Roddick	...	Priest
Renée Geyer	...	Barmaid

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | UK:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company:

Dofine Productions

Requiem For a Marriage

My First Wife is an excruciatingly emotional film about the break-up of a marriage in contemporary Australia. There's not much new in it, and the dialogue isn't especially brilliant, but it's exceeding well done and sharply observant. Director and co-author Paul Cox based the story partly on events in his own life, and it shows. I feel a little cool about the film, as it delves into extremely intimate feelings with a mix of openness and artlessness that I find at times offputting. There are things that we are told about the husband that it might be better not to know, or to have told differently. The cast, led by John Hargreaves and Wendy Hughes, is flawless. Like so many films from Australia and Great Britain over the last twenty years, My First Wife has about it an undercurrent of pessimism that goes beyond its putative subject matter, as if the real subject were the Anglo-Saxon world in general, and its imminent demise, which, as is suggested in this film, richly deserved.