KnockKnock1 This movie is a puzzler. On the second viewing, I thought it was pretty good.I don't know why that is for certain. Is it because, on first viewing, the film makes you angry about innocence stolen and snuffed out forever? This is the natural reaction you get from watching this, but the final shot makes you feel as though the makers of it disagree or were too busy being even handed, respectful to both families,that they leached the ending of it's inherent power. You'll have to see this film to find out. I will just conclude with this point. Dear filmmakers, choose a lane. This isn't one of those stories where you can "take both sides".Miranda Otto is the standout performance, but the entire Otto family is wildly talented, so unfairly, a genius acting performance is to be expected from her clan and as per usual, she doesn't disappoint. Guy Pearce is solid and the young actors in this film are uniformly excellent. A solid crime film, based on a true story that you won't soon forget.

tomsview When I first saw this film – a true story – which features the graphic depiction of the murder of 15-year old Rachel Elizabeth Barber, I wondered how her parents could sit through it.However, in an interview, Rachel's mother, Elizabeth Barber, explained that she and her husband, "…didn't want people to shy away from what murder really is".This is one of the most harrowing movies you are likely to see.Rachel, played by Kate Bell, disappears after attending a dance class. The story follows her parents, Elizabeth and Mike Barber (Miranda Otto and Guy Pearce) as they attempt to find her, and convince the police that she hasn't simply run away. The film then cuts to the woman who has actually murdered their daughter, Caroline Reed Robertson, played in searing style by Ruth Bradley. Caroline came to know the family as a neighbour years before; a chance encounter that changed their lives.Combined with all the little details of family life, and the reactions of the younger children, Miranda Otto and Guy Pierce as the mother and father are so real that this film is often painful to watch.Sam Neil who plays Caroline's father, David Reid, has real presence on the screen, he is one of those actors who don't have to do much to steal a scene: the less he does the better he is. He projects a sense of exasperation and anxiety as Caroline's father.Ruth Bradley as Caroline is mesmerising. Overweight and hating her life and her body, she is nonetheless totally fixated on herself to the exclusion of just about all else. We see the mounting jealousy she feels for the seemingly perfect Rachel until she eventually murders her and tries to assume her identity. This film shows how the cocoon of safety, support and insularity embodied in normal family life can be shattered so easily by a malevolent, outside force.Every aspect of first-time director Simone North's film is brilliantly handled. From the incisive script to the interesting Melbourne locations, the film demonstrates the level of maturity that Australian films have attained today.The crime happened in 1999, and a postscript to the film is the fact that Caroline Reid Robertson is now eligible for parole. After seeing this movie and news reports about the case, you have to wonder whether the Victorian Parole Board is capable of getting this right; their track record in recent times has been abysmal with eleven murders committed by parolees in less than three years – one can only hope.

secondtake In Her Skin (2009)Rather compelling. And a knock out performance by one of the leads, the troubled young girl Caroline played by Ruth Bradley.This is a real life story of a murder of a girl in Australia (and the production is Aussie, so sometimes the accents a bit think for an outsider). It strives for basic realism, so the acting and photography and editing are fairly straight forward. And well done.Because of these very same things, the movie doesn't rise above. It depends on the story to make it special, and of course the story is sordid and scary, but it isn't actually so unusual in our murderous world. So things stay firmly rooted all along.What you might expect after awhile is some insight into the girls, and the families around them, since this is almost entirely what the movie is about. In a more obvious way, the theme also centers on beauty and the opposite of beauty. The two girls, Caroline the overweight angry kid and Rachel the successful dancer kid, are opposites in almost every way. The way society makes judgments, and the way girls see themselves through society's lens, are very much what (apparently) led to the eventual violence.Oddly enough, even though I like this, it isn't necessarily special enough to recommend. Maybe if the themes sound good, go for it. Or the idea of a simple, realistic glimpse of modern upper middle class Australia.

Tim Kidner It was the star names of Guy Pearce and Sam Neill that made me look twice when scrolling through Sky Movies 'Anytime' selection.Guy has often been excellent and Sam's always a solid performer and I had hopes that this might be above your average TV 'missing persons case of the week', with some adult-orientated content and good acting.There's a lot of surface stylised gloss that might seem superfluous, at least initially, in what is essentially a depiction of the shattering life of the outgoing, confident 15 year old Rachel (Kate Bell). She's sexy and with a boyfriend who she is obviously besotted with. Guy Pierce, is husband to Miranda Otto and are the parents to Rachel and they are the ones who raise the alarm to a unsympathetic police.Sam Neill plays the business-man father of the emotionally troubled Caroline and he is caught between his awkwardness around and toward his daughter (an excellent Ruth Bradley) and to him, his more interesting and productive work-life.However, the swirling and sweeping camera and heightened experience that director Simone North (who's been in TV production since the 80s, inc. The Flying Doctors) uses certainly makes the film more watchable. There's also a fair amount of fantasy and psychological sequences and cross-cutting of time zones, which does make piecing the events together a little confusing at times, but it does gel after a while.As the film progresses, we see how these two girls interact and how their friendship might have contributed to the initial outcome. I'm going to leave the plot there - if you watch it then you'll find out more. This is not the sort of film that I would have wanted to pay to see, either at the Cinema, nor as a DVD rental. It's OK as a weekday filler feature, but to be honest, nothing much more than that. 6/10, or 3 stars.