Oyster Farmer

Herald rating: * *

The debut feature of Australia-based expatriate Reeves, who made a couple of conscientiously strange short films here in the 90s, is a short film stretched to feature length. Like the snowbound Somersault, it is set in a little-filmed Australia - the Hawkesbury River on Sydney's northern fringes - and, as the title suggests, among the oyster farmers who work the water.

Into this tight-knit, slightly incestuous community comes Jack Flange (O'Lachlan), looking for work to pay the medical bills of his damaged sister (Harrison). When he realises his slim pay packets won't do the job, he comes up with an improbable robbery plan in Sydney and sends the loot to himself, all of which is fine until the postal boat capsizes.

Kiwi cinematographer Alun Bollinger, of River Queen fame, captures perfectly the moods of the Hawkesbury.

But the film has no sense of whether it is a love story, drama or documentary. At times, it wants to be a comedy, but there never seems much to laugh about.

Its richest pleasures are in its subordinate characters, the reliable David Field who has been dumped by his wife (Armstrong) and wants her back mainly for her superior expertise. He says she is a woman with "hair on her upper lip and evil in her heart" and it is one of the movie's few good lines.

CAST: Alex O'Lachlan, Diana Glenn, Jack Thompson, Kerry Armstrong, David Field, Jim Norton, Claudia Harrison
DIRECTOR: Anna Reeves
RUNNING TIME: 93 mins
RATING: M, sex scenes and offensive language
SCREENING: Academy