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''Sweetie'' is a 1989 Australian
black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...
drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
film directed by
Jane Campion Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion (born 30 April 1954) is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed films ''The Piano'' (1993) and '' The Power of the Dog'' (2021), for which she has received a tot ...
, and starring
Genevieve Lemon Genevieve Lemon (born 21 April 1958) is an Australian actress and singer who has appeared in a number of Australian television series and international film, including a frequent collaboration with Jane Campion for Academy Award-winning ''The P ...
, Karen Colston, Tom Lycos, and Jon Darling. Co-written by Campion and
Gerard Lee Gerard Lee is an Australian novelist, screenwriter, and director. Early life Gerard Lee was born in Melbourne and brought up in Brisbane in the 1960s in the inner southern suburb of Dutton Park. Lee began writing for ''The Telegraph'' newspap ...
, the film documents the contentious and chaotic relationships among a woman in her twenties, her parents, and her emotionally unstable sister. It was Jane Campion's first feature film. It was entered into the
1989 Cannes Film Festival The 42nd Cannes Film Festival was held from 11 to 23 May 1989. The Palme d'Or went to ''Sex, Lies, and Videotape'' by Steven Soderbergh. The festival opened with ''New York Stories'', anthology film directed by Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, ...
and won an
Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film The Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film is an award presented annually at the Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Aw ...
in 1991.


Plot

The story focuses on a dysfunctional Australian family that includes two daughters: Dawn (nicknamed "Sweetie") a lively, often delusional woman who fancies herself an actor, and her thin, sullen, superstitious sister Kay, a factory worker who has a boyfriend named Louis. Their parents, Flo and Gordon, are having serious marital problems. Kay loves Louis because the words of a fortune teller portended she would end up with him. However, the couple's relationship begins to show signs of strain, with Kay uprooting and hiding a tree Louis attempts to plant in their yard because she feels a deep foreboding about it. After an absence, Sweetie returns home with her drug-addicted lover and "manager" Bob; she then proceeds to intimidate, control, and abuse the other members of her family. Gordon chooses to ignore Sweetie's mental illness and erratic, childish behaviour because he loves her and thinks of her as a child. Throughout the film, there are flashbacks to Sweetie dancing, singing and performing small, circus-like tricks with Gordon's assistance. Flo admits he indulges her. Sweetie's emotional volatility and physical destructiveness (ruining Kay's clothes, breaking furniture) reflects the disruption she has caused her family. Louis breaks up with Kay after mounting tension between the couple. After a series of circular fights (Sweetie rages, her family forgives her, her sweetness and fun persona return), Sweetie completely loses her mind. She strips off her clothes, paints her body black and holes up in her childhood
tree house A tree house, tree fort or treeshed is a platform or building constructed around, next to or among the trunk or branches of one or more mature trees while above ground level. Tree houses can be used for recreation, work space, habitation, a han ...
. Though her family begs her to come down, she refuses and keeps shaking the fort until it falls from the tree, killing her and injuring Flo. Trees continue to play a role even after Sweetie's death, as her private interment is briefly disrupted by a tree root that obstructs her grave. Louis and Kay get back together, while Kay's family achieves a sort of resolution. They no longer feel manipulated and agitated by Sweetie's presence. However, the best of her personality persists, as Kay and her parents maintain an image of her in her truest form, that of a little girl.


Cast


Production

Campion wanted to make a low-budget contemporary feature. She came up with the character of Sweetie and she and Gerard Lee started writing in February 1987 and finished in May. The film was shot in Sydney. For both Lemon and Colston, ''Sweetie'' was their film acting debut. Both described an immediate connection to each other as well as to Campion, akin to a sisterly relationship. The production team itself was heavily dominated by women.


Reception


Box office

''Sweetie'' grossed $337,680 at the box office in Australia.


Critical response

In ''Australian Film, 1978-1994'', ''Sweetie'' is described as "a ghastly parody of the tyranny of family life".
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave the film 3½ stars out of four, writing " 'Sweetie''is a story with a realistic origin, told with a fresh and bold eye...Most movies slide right through our minds without hitting anything. This one screams and shouts every step of the way". In a 2015 review in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', Luke Buckmaster wrote, "The world of ''Sweetie'' – a beautifully strange and compelling film debut – is bent out of shape with almost intangibly subtle precision. Campion offsets what could have been a morose drama with an atmosphere that becomes increasingly, and unnervingly, mystical". The
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
and
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
editions of the film, released by
The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
, include three of Campion's earlier short films: "''An Exercise in Discipline: Peel''", "''
Passionless Moments ''Passionless Moments'' is a 1983 short Australian drama film written and directed by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival The 39th Cannes Film Festival was held fr ...
''", and " ''A Girl’s Own Story''". Filmmaker
Carol Morley Carol Anne Morley (born 14 January 1966) is an English film director, screenwriter and producer. She is best known for her semi-documentary ''Dreams of a Life'', released in 2011, about Joyce Carol Vincent, who died in her North London bedsit i ...
, who has called Campion her greatest influence, cited ''Sweetie'' as her favourite film on an episode of Radio 4's ''
The Film Programme ''The Film Programme'' was a British film review radio programme, broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4, from 2004 to 2021, presented by Francine Stock. The programme had a number of regular contributors, including Neil Brand and Rosemary Fletcher. ...
''. Campion was a surprise guest on the programme and said
Philip French Philip Neville French Order of the British Empire, OBE (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English film critic and radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio prod ...
of ''The Observer'' found the film "disgusting", and an Italian outlet asked her why she had to make a film that was "so dirty".


See also

*
Cinema of Australia The cinema of Australia had its beginnings with the 1906 production of ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'', arguably the world's first feature film. Since then, Australian crews have produced many films, a number of which have received internati ...


References


External links

* * *
''Sweetie: Jane Campion’s Experiment''
an essay by Dana Polan at the
Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...

Sweetie at the National Film and Sound Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sweetie (Film) 1989 films 1989 comedy-drama films 1989 black comedy films 1989 independent films 1989 directorial debut films Australian black comedy films 1980s feminist films Films directed by Jane Campion Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film winners Films about sisters Films about dysfunctional families 1980s English-language films 1989 in Australian cinema 1990 in American cinema