IMDb > Friends (1993)

Overview

User Rating:
5.0/10   62 votes
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Down 9% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Elaine Proctor
Writer:
Elaine Proctor (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for Friends on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
14 January 1994 (UK) more
Genre:
Drama more
Plot:
Three female friends, in the end of the eighties, share a house in Johannesburg, South Africa. Each of them has her own way to live the apartheid... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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Awards:
2 wins & 1 nomination more
User Comments:
You can't always see things in black or white! more (2 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
Kerry Fox ... Sophie
Dambisa Kente ... Thoko
Michele Burgers ... Aninka
Marius Weyers ... Johan
Tertius Meintjes ... Jeremy
Dolly Rathebe ... Innocentia
Wilma Stockenström ... Iris
Carel Trichardt ... Rheinhart
Anne Curteis ... Sophie's mother
Ralph Draper ... Sophie's father
Mary Twala ... Grace
Maphiki Mabohi ... Daphne
Job Kubatsi ... Maurondile
Vanessa Cooke ... Prison's warden
Jerry Mofokeng ... Thomi
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
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Runtime:
105 min
Country:
South Africa | UK | France
Language:
English
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Sound Mix:
Dolby
Certification:
Sweden:15 | UK:15
Filming Locations:
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Company:
Chrysalide Film more

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User Comments

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful.
You can't always see things in black or white!, 28 August 2001
Author: Rupert-17

An honest but flawed attempt by young South African director Elaine Proctor to examine the last days of South Africa's Apartheid regime as observed and defined by the friendship of three young women from different ethnic backgrounds. Sophie is the anglo activist, apparently propelled into terrorism against a racist system that callously and indiscriminately brutalizes the Blacks she has grown up with. Aninka is an Afrikaner farm girl, at first dismayed by Sophie's activism but then gradually coming to an understanding of the events unfolding around her and the realization that her life will never be the same as Apartheid stutters to its inevitable and violent end. And Thoko, an educated black women whose friendship with Sophie and Aninka has caused her to lose touch with a sense of her destiny, until the sudden loss of her job and the arrival of her mother reawaken in her what it really means to be a Black woman in White South Africa. To me, her chummy friendship with middleclass white women strains credibility. In fact, the collective friendship of the three women seems unlikely; they are poles apart and I for one would imagine their relationship would have been threatened long before the goings-on around the time of Mandela's release. The plot is a bit muddled and the characters unconvincingly drawn. Kerry Fox, who plays Sophie, is a journeyman actress capable of solid performances, but here her acting is overwrought and it can only be assumed that Proctor is responsible. It's not a good script, lacking sharp dialogue and overflowing with clichéd characters. Naturally, all the Blacks are saintly and most of the Whites are evil or impotent. The most believable character is Aninka's new husband, who sees through Sophie's shallowness pretty quickly and tries to steer his wife's life away from the danger of associating with a loose cannon like Sophie. I must say the character of Sophie is such a neurotic flibbertigibbet that it's almost impossible to believe any Black freedom organization would send her to buy bread let alone carry out a terrorist act. Still, it's a film worth watching and maybe Proctor is a director worth following in the future. 6/10

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