Strange Planet (1999)

3 girls in Sydney share an apartment and friendship. The movie follows them as well as 3 guys for a year from New Year's Eve 1998. They'll meet each other before the year ends.

Director:

Emma-Kate Croghan

Writers:

Stavros Kazantzidis (story), Stavros Kazantzidis (screenplay)

Stars:

Claudia Karvan, Naomi Watts, Alice Garner

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Claudia Karvan	...	Judy
Naomi Watts	...	Alice
Alice Garner	...	Sally
Tom Long	...	Ewan
Aaron Jeffery	...	Joel
Felix Williamson	...	Neil
Hugo Weaving	...	Steven
Rebecca Frith	...	Amanda
Marshall Napier	...	Robert
Loene Carmen	...	Amy
Heidi McDonald	...	Bridget
Harry Cripps	...	Paul
Rebel Penfold-Russell	...	Producer
Hugh Baldwin	...	Bob
Helen Thomson	...	Lulu

Storyline

This romantic comedy takes place over the course of one year - opening on New Year's Eve of one year and closing exactly one year later. The film focuses on three women living together in a house in Sydney and three male best friends. The men and women at the film's start have not yet met, but it is obvious that all will get together by film's end. The three women are all ending nowhere relationships with married men, older men, or just life's losers. One of the men is just a shy law graduate, one is a sexual conqueror who has just learned one of his conquests is pregnant, and the last is facing a breakup of his marriage. Through various events, each of the two trios end up together at the turn of the year.

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Plot Keywords:

female female kiss | lesbian kiss | coitus | copulation | sex in bed | 

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Taglines:

3 girls. 3 guys. 365 days to get it together.

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Details

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 October 1999 (Australia)

Also Known As:

Extraño planeta

Filming Locations:

Kirribilli, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Company Credits

Production Co:

Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC), Strange Planet, Premium Movie Partnership

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Ewan: I'd tell my friend it's a risky game falling in love with a married man, and that if you play tennis with the devil, you can't complain if he cheats.

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Connections

References Taxi Driver (1976)

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Soundtracks

The Look of Love
Written by Burt Bacharach, Hal David
Performed by Dusty Springfield

User Reviews

Yet another sad triumph of of style over substance.

Like a few other Australian entries from 1999, 'Strange Planet' is gorgeously filmed but appallingly scripted and acted. The story sees two sets of three friends (three girls and three guys) who stumble to and from bad relationships. In a nutshell, that's basically the plot. Spanning a year, the film certainly covers a lot of time. And neatly too. Each new month is visually introduced by some stunning time-lapse sequences of Syndey. However, once plot and character development come into swing, then the movie just falls flat on its face. Dialogue feels too sparse and wanna-be offbeat, not to mention being so predictable and underdeveloped that it feels more like a synopsis than dialogue. The 'witty' nihilist-turned-romantic banter about relationships is anything but. The plot likewise feels all too familiar, and the ending comes paradoxically unsurprising and undeveloped, so undeveloped that the last shot (an overhead of the six eating breakfast) feels like an insulting attempt at gratifying the audience. Yet another sad triumph of of style over substance. Try 'The Big Night Out' for similar results.

2/5