Craig Silvey’s novel has been lauded and loved by Australian readers since it was first published in 2009. Rachel Perkins’s adaptation of it for the screen is bound to find an appreciative audience, but as I have not read the book I cannot pass comment on its fidelity to the written word.
The film is hokey in parts, with an unpolished, ‘home-made’ feel, but beguiling performances from Levi Miller as Charlie, through whose eyes the events unfold, and Angourie Rice as Eliza, the girl he is sweet on, hold it together more tightly than the murder mystery. Jasper (Aaron L McGrath), an Indigenous boy, comes in desperation to Charlie’s window one night. He has found the body of Eliza’s sister hanging from a tree and, it being 1965 in small-town Western Australia, Jasper is fearful that he will automatically be held responsible for her death. He persuades his little mate to help him dispose of the body and the girl’s disappearance consumes the community with fear and grief – or at least it should. But somehow that pall is dissipated by Perkins’s digressions and a supernova input from Toni Collette that tends to draw attention away from where the focus should be, while Dan Wyllie as her hubby barely gets out of first gear. And if we didn’t know that Aussie yokels were a bunch of racist hicks, Perkins goes out of her way to remind us with the episode of the Lu family’s treatment and their kid’s heroic effort when batting for the home side in a game of cricket.
It is preachy when it need not be and an affair involving the local police sergeant (Matt Nable) also detracts from the intense drama of a child gone missing. Hugo Weaving, understanding best that the movie is not about him, is brilliantly grungy as Mad Jack Lionel, but the revelation at the end did not come as the surprise that it might have. It is miles better than The Dressmaker, but the narrative threads are stretched almost to breaking point.
Making Jasper Jones
Screenworks present special guest speaker, co-producer of Jasper Jones, Vincent Sheehan, at the screening of Jasper Jones at the Byron Community Centre on Thursday 23 March.
The film’s co-producer Vincent Sheehan is a film and television producer and co-founder of Porchlight Films an independent production company based in Sydney. His producing credits include the feature films Little Fish starring Cate Blanchett and The Hunter starring Willem Dafoe. Vincent was executive producer on the ABC TV series Laid, Cate Shortland’s Lore and David Michod’s feature films Animal Kingdom and The Rover starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce.
Screenworks’ event screening of Jasper Jones followed by Q&A is a one-off opportunity to see this film and join in a conversation with the film’s co-producer producer Vincent Sheehan. For more information and tickets visit the website www.screenworks.com.au. Limited seats available. Starts at 7pm.
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