Sister Eileen becomes obsessed by an Indigenous boy with special gifts in Warwick Thornton’s handsome 1940s culture-clash tale

The new boy (Aswan Reid, electric) is delivered to the Christian mission at night, tied in a hessian sack like a wild animal. And that’s how the white world of 1940s Australia views Indigenous Australian kids like him – as feral, unpredictable creatures in need of civilisation.

Through the lens of her fervent faith, Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett) can see that there is something special about the child – he picks up snakes the way other children collect pebbles; he can soothe a fever with just his hands. And he can create a floating spark of light – a plaything and comfort for him in the long, strange nights in the mission dormitory. But the boy’s otherness is alarming to her, something that needs to be contained and reshaped.

Continue reading...

With just a touch of camp, Blanchett plays an imperious nun imposing Christianity on Indigenous orphans in Warwick Thornton’s enjoyable, enigmatic drama

Usually a director’s cut makes the film longer. Not this time. When Warwick Thornton ’s new movie premiered at Cannes last year it ran at 116 minutes. Now, in time for its UK release, Thornton has reduced it to just over an hour and a half, removing a substantial 20 minutes. The effect is to sharpen focus and tighten up the final act – which is where I felt it sagged the first time around – and create a greater emphasis on the narrative give-and-take between Cate Blanchett’s antiheroine and the Indigenous Australian boy that she comes to care for. Yet for me there is still something a bit soft-edged about the drama, which doesn’t punch as hard as Thornton’s other films. And there’s a touch of camp – not un-enjoyable, of course – in Blanchett’s performance.

Blanchett plays the imperious, fully wimpled nun Sister Eileen, who using tricks and wiles has imposed absolute bureaucratic authority over a Catholic orphanage in the 1940s Australian outback – a remote, hot, dusty place where the callous state authorities dump runaways, particularly Indigenous children. She attaches great importance to christening her charges, effacing their Indigenous identity and imposing Christian ideology.

Continue reading...

Neighbours complaining of building noise from property in Mawgan Porth, reports say

It is the latest sequel in the long-running saga over the luxury ecohome Cate Blanchett is building in a picturesque seaside town in Cornwall once dubbed “Hollywood-on-Sea”.

Neighbours have accused the actor of destroying family holidays with the building noise from the property in Mawgan Porth, it has been reported.

Continue reading...

The Line of Duty actor and Phil MacHugh go skiing and meet the country’s youngest MP. Plus: The Great Escape: The True Story. Here’s what to watch this evening

Continue reading...