Here I Am

Here I Am, brought to you by the makers of Samson and Delilah, has a lot to say but tends to mumble. 

This movie has many of the elements of a Ken Loach or even a Dogme 95 movie. It's shot on location, using mostly non-actors and encorporating unscripted scenes. The subject matter is very Loachesque.

Karen is released from prison and attempts to fit back in to society and reconnect with her daughter. I love movies that take me into unfamiliar territory and this certainly does that. The warmest part of the story is the women's shelter that Karen finds herself in. At first strange and abrasive, the women provide Karen with the strength to continue.

Apparently the movie received a standing ovation at its premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival and I can see why. It has plenty to recommend it; gritty realism, emotional story, great creative team, raw talent. By the end of the film I felt good. I'd been somewhere with these characters and I felt like it was all going to be okay. But the experience was very uneven.

A story is basically a series of moments and this one has some very special moments. Unfortunately the inexperienced cast fail to make the most of them.

The film is a character based piece but you need a strong cast to pull off character work. Some of the characters really worked including Skinny (Pauline Whyman), Anita (Betty Sumner) and Jeff (Bruce Carter). It's a shame the wheels fell off whenever there was emotional violence involved. Just when I wanted to get lost in the story a lack of depth or a wooden performance reminded me that it was a construction.

The thing about realism in films is that it's not real. Film is a construction and the job of the creative team is to make that construction as life-like as possible. That doesn't mean you just let a camera roll. It takes a lot of artifice to make something look real.

As much as I wanted to like Here I Am it didn't do it for me. It's impressive as a first feature and I hope to see more from Beck Cole but this one just didn't work. If you haven't seen Samson and Delilah go now. It's a much more rewarding experience.