The Eye of the Storm

2011

Action / Drama

8
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 60% · 53 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 46% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.0/10 10 1736 1.7K

sydney, australia lighthouse keeper 1970s family reunion dying mother

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Plot summary

In a Sydney suburb, two nurses, Maria and Flora, a housekeeper, Lotte, and a solicitor, Arnold, attend to Elizabeth Hunter as her expatriate son Sir Basil, a famous but struggling actor in London, and daughter Dorothy, a divorced and down at heel princess, convene at her deathbed. They come to make sure they can leave Australia with their hefty inheritance.

Director

Fred Schepisi Photo
Fred Schepisi

Top cast

Colin Friels Photo
Colin Friels as Athol Shreve
Heather Mitchell Photo
Heather Mitchell as June
Geoffrey Rush Photo
Geoffrey Rush as Basil Hunter
Judy Davis Photo
Judy Davis as Dorothy de Lascabanes
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
996.89 MB
1280*534
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
24 fps
1 hr 54 min
Seeds ...
1.89 GB
1920*800
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
24 fps
1 hr 54 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Philby-3

A solid adaptation of Oz classic

Patrick White put Australia on the literary map by winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973, but his rich dense style did not make for a best-selling author. This film, an adaptation of White's novel, marks the first time anyone has succeeded in filming a White novel, though he wrote the screenplay for a curious piece directed by Jim Sharman, "The Night the Prowler" in 1977. Director Fred Schepisi said at the preview I attended that it was a challenge to film the allegedly unfilmable; if it had been easy it would have not been worth doing. Yet despite the style White was rather a theatrical author, and Judy Morris's screenplay accurately reflects White's mordant wit. His characters are acting their way through life and there is drama in almost every scene.Old Mrs Elizabeth Hunter, widow of a wealthy grazier, is nearing the end of her days in some splendour in her Centennial Park, Sydney, mansion, and her two children have been summoned to her bedside. Her son Basil, once a leading actor on the London stage whose career is now in decline and her daughter Dorothy, the ex-wife of a minor French aristocrat, are motivated more by their possible inheritance than affection for the old lady. In fact Elizabeth inspires more affection in her nurses, solicitor and housekeeper than she does in her children. Dorothy in particular has cause to hate her mother, yet it is she who gets closer to her as the film progresses.Schepisi manages to blend in the dark humour of the situation with the downbeat storyline. The cinemaphotograhy is gorgeous and the cutting, often without the usual establishment shots, wonderfully done, given the extensive use made of flashbacks – you instantly realise where the characters are. The book's interior monologues often appear as a single image in a single screen. The casting is such as Geoffrey Rush mentioned at the preview that he could not refuse – the very best of the Australian acting profession, though the pivotal role of Elizabeth Hunter is played with great panache by Charlotte Rampling. Rush plays Basil as a man who takes himself seriously, but can't persuade anyone else to. Judy Davis simmers as the disillusioned Dorothy , and John Gaden as Wyburd the family solicitor with a skeleton or to in his own cupboard is pitch perfect. Flora the day nurse, played by Schepsi's daughter Alexandra, is vividly realised, and there are good performances in minor roles also, including Helen Morse, unrecognisable, as Lotte the tragic housekeeper, and Colin Friels as a Labor politician on the make rather reminiscent of one Robert James Lee Hawke. The only odd casting decision is casting Melbourne locations as Sydney. Mrs Hunter's mansion is definitely not in Sydney and only a couple of brief scenes are shot in Centennial Park.It has been opined that "The Eye of the Storm" is Patrick White in drag, and it is true that there are some obvious personal aspects to the story - there is a lot of White's mother in Mrs Hunter. Set as it is in the early 1970s in the declining old money grazier milieu, this film could be written off as a period piece. Yet Schepisi has managed to capture both the theme and atmosphere of the novel. The difficulties of dying have rarely been so well depicted on film. This may not be a box office smash, but it will appeal to anyone who likes a solid piece of film-making.
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Reviewed by euroGary 6 / 10

Rampling's the best thing about it

'The Eye of the Storm' has Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis returning from overseas to visit their ailing mother (unprobably played by Charlotte Rampling) who lives in a big house where the staff are there for her entertainment as much as to care for her. I've mixed feelings about this; I like a good drama, but some parts of it are decidedly iffy (for instance, a flashback featuring Rampling and Davis has the latter looking older than the woman playing her mother!) Rush probably over-eggs the pudding in his role as an old thesp, but Davis is good as the dissatisfied wife of a French prince (? I thought they didn't have those anymore). Rampling is superb: I don't usually rate her as an actress - her performances are almost always so studied she can never convince me she's not acting - but here she really sinks her teeth into the role of an old woman who knows her children's main interest in her is when she's going to die.

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