Three Dollars (2005)

THREE DOLLARS is the story of Eddie, an honest, compassionate man who finds himself with a wife, a child, and three dollars. Eddie's world revolves around the three women in his life: his ... See full summary »

Director:

Robert Connolly

Writers:

Elliot Perlman (novel), Robert Connolly (screenplay)

Stars:

David Wenham, Frances O'Connor, Sarah Wynter

4 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
David Wenham	...	Eddie Harnovey
Frances O'Connor	...	Tanya Harnovey
Sarah Wynter	...	Amanda
Robert Menzies	...	Nick
David Roberts	...	Gerard
Nicole Nabout	...	Kate
Joanna Hunt-Prokhovnik	...	Abby Harnovey
Nico Billeam	...	Tiny
Christopher Bunworth	...	Chamberlain
Phillip Griffiths	...	Young Eddie Harnovey
Casey Petersen	...	Young Amanda
Helen Fletcher	...	Amanda's Mother
Phil Jones	...	Mr. Claremont
Kieron O'Leary	...	Young Eddie's Father (as Keiron O'Leary)
Jamie Robertson	...	Record Shop Assistant

Storyline

THREE DOLLARS is the story of Eddie, an honest, compassionate man who finds himself with a wife, a child, and three dollars. Eddie's world revolves around the three women in his life: his brilliant wife Tanya, a passionate academic, their six year old daughter Abby, who heightens the stakes on every decision Eddie makes, and his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful, privileged Amanda, who re-appears in his life with mathematical certainty every nine and a half years. Surviving with a blend of self-depreciating wit, spirited sensitivity and a big heart, his life is rich with the pleasures and pains of love, family, friendship and marriage. But with only three dollars to his name Eddie will be faced with a choice that will change the direction of his life forever.

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Plot Keywords:

australia | based on novel | number in title | 

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Taglines:

The epic story of an ordinary man

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language, some sexuality and brief violence

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 April 2005 (Australia)

Also Known As:

Tres dólares

Filming Locations:

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company Credits

Production Co:

Arenafilm

Technical Specs

Runtime:

118 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Connections

References North by Northwest (1959)

User Reviews

brave new Aussie film, but....

There are many things to appreciate about Robert Connolly's Three Dollars, but the film could have been much better if it was dealt better with what I'd call its 2 main problems. These problems are: the unnecessary length of the film and the ambiguity of its main premise or what one's might call the distraction of the main dramatic problem in the storyline.

Starting off its trailer, no one could get the slightest hint what 3 Dollars was going to be about; so why there was a trailer in the first place? However, Robert Connolly in his Q&A with the premier show of the film in Brisbane repeated more than one time in his answers to the audience that "the film is about a good man being tested in all aspects of his life. Tested in his relation with his wife and daughter. Tested in his morality about his work. Tested in his financial situation, and tested even in the streets he walks on!" The film, as Connolly puts it, is "an epic story of an ordinary man." This definition for the main plot line in 3 dollars took the filmmakers to kind of misleading direction. Do ordinary people make epics? Probably yes, but Three Dollars in fact is not an epic film. It's a film that was frilled with many details that made its interesting story less connection. The film finds its appropriate pace in the last 25 minutes and holds it firmly to the end, but the first 90 minutes were so long that I'm sure many people won't stay on their seats to reach those interesting 25 minutes. Scenes, takes and dialogs were all very long that it could have been shorten. I believe that 3 Dollars strongly needs to be reedited and take off no less than 20 minutes of its unnecessary scenes.

Related to the problem of the film's length, one's could also points out to the problem of that the film spent very long time building up its frilled story just to reach its final point—where the ordinary man becomes a tramp for one night. On the way to reach that point, the film mixes many genres for no good reason. Sometimes it looks like black comedy whereas other times it was pure social realism story. Mixing genres, in fact, is good thing to reject Hollywood one-vision style of film-making, but it could be also dangerous exercise if it not done smartly. Mixing genres in 3 dollars seemed illogical and been done in a way that it didn't help the film a lot. Talking about mixing genres I just want to refer here to the homage Connolly had to Hitchcock's North By Northwest. I mean the famous scene where an airplane attacks/follows an unarmed man. This scene, though it was well done/remade in 3 dollars, is a good example for those sequences were audience's attention been drawn to something else rather than the main story.

But 3 Dollars is also a brave Australian film that succeeded avoiding some of the market requirements such as action, gunfights and happy ending. In fact, there is a brave thing about 3 Dollars that deserve special salute: filming the harsh street life of beggars and tramps. I think it is the first Australian film that dealt in this depth with this issue, which most directors usually avoid. Why they avoid it? Because it's hard to be done. Filming the harsh life on poor streets is a harsh practice itself. The best parts of 3 Dollars are those last 25 minutes about the life on the street. While watching those sequences, I was recalling the Australian aboriginal singer Archie Roach's song, Move It On, where he painfully sings, "I was raised on the street/ I'm nobody's fool/ yeah I was raised on the street/ but street can be so cruel".