Review: Separation City

TABLE MANNERS: From left, Katrien (Rhona Mitra), Pam (Danielle Cormack), Joanne (Jodie Rimmer), Harry (Les Hill) and Simon (Joel Edgerton) in Tom Scott's comedy-drama Separation City, set in Wellington and Berlin.

Twenty years in the writing, Separation City is a Wellington-set comedy-drama about married couples and the damage they may cause each other when their marriages have endured way beyond any first flush of romance or passion.

The script gives us Joel  Edgerton and Danielle Cormack as  Simon and Pam. He is a speech  writer and adviser to a government minister. She appears to stay  at home with their adorable children. Simon has the hots for one of  Pam's best friends, the exotic and  gorgeous Katrien (Rhona Mitra).

Katrien, meanwhile, is separated from Klaus, a philandering artist and pot-smoking existentialist she has followed to New Zealand from Germany. Bouncing around these four, a selection of friends and work mates occasionally appear to provide comic relief, unheeded advice or a shoulder to cry on, usually in that order.

This is a film that could have been made in 1989, when writer Tom Scott was finishing the first of many rejected drafts. Back then, I think this story's simplicity, characters and underlying supposition that "men and women just don't understand each other" (sigh) might have been quite at home.

But 20 years on, the script has been polished to a dull sheen, with only a few scenes hinting at the rough, uncompromised, and lovable beast it might have been.

Scott can write a stunning gag, but not until the very end of this film did I hear one conversation between a man and a woman that sounded like anything adults might actually say to each other.

The male characters fall into broad stereotypes. Among Simon's compatriots are the thug, the rooter, the milquetoast and the best mate who speaks as though he is rehearsing a stand-up comedy routine. Meanwhile, the women are too thinly drawn to really stand out in any way. Cormack and Mitra perform miracles with the script, but there is nothing here to suggest that these women are anything other than exactly what the men imagine them to be.

Simon falls for Katrien because he feels unloved by Pam, but he acknowledges, in an interminable voice-over, that he is at fault for that. Katrien falls for Simon because she sees him as reliable and honest, but she throws herself at him, her best friend's husband, the minute he starts to act like a duplicitous ratbag. I didn't buy it.

If that central relationship isn't credible, there really aren't many places for Separation City left to go. The film has some great set pieces, some wonderful jokes and a handful of laugh-out-loud moments. The scenes inside Simon's parliamentary office are terrific, a sequence set in a Berlin hotel is inspired, and Scott milks the men's "self- help group" set-up for everything it can provide - although one character's claim to have hospitalised his wife three times by beating her is unforgivably still played for laughs. Moments such as that betray Separation City's age and naivety.

SEPARATION CITY 
(M)
(107min)

Directed by Paul Middleditch.
Starring Joel Edgerton, Rhona Mitra, Danielle Cormack, Les Hill.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Julie   #7   10:00 am Aug 12 2009

I liked the film but agree with the review. It's interesting that NZ films seem to be exercising their right to be commercialised and trivial. Sometimes even entertaining. Let's hope that once they work through it there will emerge a blend of the "Angel at my Table" insight and depth and "Tongan Ninja" craziness and fun.

kels   #6   12:22 pm Aug 11 2009

I loved it, very funny, lots of laugh at loud moments

Graeme Tuckett   #5   03:24 pm Aug 10 2009

Yes Louisette. It is a Graeme Tuckett review. Thank you for being such a dedicated reader of them!

All the best, Graeme Tuckett

Nicolette   #4   02:06 pm Aug 10 2009

Thank you for the honest review. This film made me almost sick at times. Such middle aged man wish fulfillment nonsense. Thanks you for seeing through the hype and writing a well balanced review. I thought you were generous. 2 stars from me.

Louisette   #3   10:14 am Aug 10 2009

Does anyone know if this is a Graeme Tuckett review? It doesn't fill me with any desire to see Separation City, but I know from experience that if Tuckett gives a film 3 stars it means I'll probably like it.

Tom   #2   09:15 pm Aug 09 2009

you're wrong.. great movie.. 5 stars

chris   #1   10:59 am Aug 08 2009

rhona mitra!