The Eye of the Storm (I) (2011)

Elizabeth Hunter controls all in her life - society, her staff, her children; but the once great beauty will now determine her most defiant act as she chooses her time to die.

Director:

Fred Schepisi

Writers:

Judy Morris (screenplay), Patrick White (novel)

Stars:

Charlotte Rampling, Maria Theodorakis, Geoffrey Rush

7 wins & 20 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Charlotte Rampling	...	Elizabeth Hunter
Maria Theodorakis	...	Mary DeSantis
Geoffrey Rush	...	Basil Hunter
Jamie Timony	...	Onslow Porter
Judy Davis	...	Dorothy de Lascabanes
Bob Marcs	...	Queens Club Porter
Alexandra Schepisi	...	Flora Manhood
John Gaden	...	Arnold Wyburd
Helen Morse	...	Lotte
Robyn Nevin	...	Lal
Jane Menelaus	...	Maggie
Bille Brown	...	Dudley
Heather Mitchell	...	June
Simon Stone	...	Peter
Nikki Shiels	...	Janie

Storyline

Elizabeth Hunter controls all in her life - society, her staff, her children; but the once great beauty will now determine her most defiant act as she chooses her time to die.

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official USA site

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 September 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

O Coração da Tempestade

Filming Locations:

Botanical Gardens, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Box Office

Budget:

AUD 15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$25,785 (USA) (7 September 2012)

Gross:

$83,297 (USA) (2 November 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paper Bark Films Pty. Ltd.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

119 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

In real life Charlotte Rampling is only five years older than her screen son Geoffrey Rush and only nine years older than her daughter Judy Davis.

User Reviews

Too dry, but well-acted.

On paper, The Eye of the Storm is loaded with tons of prestige. Adapted from the acclaimed novel by Patrick White, director Fred Schepisi (whose past work includes A Cry in the Dark and Six Degrees of Separation returns to the big screen with no less a powerhouse acting roster than Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis in the central roles of a high-society family coming to terms with decades of emotional pain and damaged relationships. As Elizabeth Hunter (Rampling) reaches the end of her life, her two children Basil (Rush) and Dorothy (Davis) return home in order to comfort her...or to ensure that she passes on.

The actors all deliver in unsurprisingly brilliant ways, but their efforts are let down by Schepisi and the script by Judy Morris. The Eye of the Storm is unfortunately a pretty stuffy drama, always teetering around something with more bite but never taking the initiative to dig their teeth into it. Morris' script dances around the buried emotions, teasing the idea of bringing them onto the surface, but then she never brings them all the way out and Schepisi lets his actors keep it all internal. Thankfully he was lucky enough to have an ensemble as skilled as this one, actors who are more than capable of playing just about anything given to them, but the reluctance to do much of anything with the promising material makes the film a bit of a drag.

There are individual scenes that work quite well, particularly whenever any of the three get to the share the screen with each other, but their separate plots never take off and there are often distracting kinks in the narrative that make the overall product feel unfocused. The whole thing is framed through Rush's character, who provides scattered narration at random times, yet we still for some reason get flashbacks with Rampling and Davis to a literal storm that occurred years earlier.

It feels like Schepisi and Morris never know whose perspective they want to focus on, and the meandering approaches make the picture feel disjointed, letting down the fine work each member of the cast is able to pull off in spite of everything working against them. The Eye of the Storm opens itself up to a lot of potential early on, but mostly it casts a fine lot of actors and then forces them to work on their own for most of the overlong two hour running time. Certainly a film to watch if you're a fan of either of the three actors (or, like me, a fan of all three) but otherwise it's something that you can do without.