Better Than Your Average Bear
A tender exploration of trauma and grief, it’s backed by some great performances, the debut narrative feature of this Australian filmmaker may not be the film you expected.
Director Ben Lawrence won the Australian Documentary Award at the Sydney Film Festival last year, and his debut feature follows a year later at the same festival. Finished only four weeks before its debut, HEARTS AND BONES is a very Sydney-based picture.
Lawrence’s script is one of those ones you think you’ve got pegged from the start: war-torn photographer Daniel Fisher (Hugo Weaving) temporarily finds a reason to stop travelling when he befriends South Sudanese refugee, Sebastian Ahmed (Andrew Luri), a taxi driver who has a community choir.
Certain expectations come when a mismatched duo from different worlds come together on screen. Yet Lawrence manages to imbue his characters with a complexity that defies at least some of the conventions of the genre. Weaving’s Daniel Fisher suffers from PTSD, gained from repeatedly throwing himself into dangerous situations to avoid anything more complicated with his longtime partner Josie (Hayley McElhinney).
The leads make a comfortable partnership, especially given the disparity in acting experience. The veteran Weaving carries a world-weariness to him that won’t easily wash out, and his past traumas slowly roll out as the film progresses. Luri, in his debut feature, was driving a garbage truck in Melbourne when he auditioned for the role. A Sudanese-Australian who came to Australia 15 years ago, he brings both authenticity and pathos to his scenes.
In both of the female leads, McElhinney and Sebastian’s wife Anishka (in a quietly accomplished performance by Bolude Watson), we have forces that refuses to let their partners cop out of living, even as past demons threaten to engulf them. If anything, it would have been great to see more of both of them, especially given that their respective traumas make them far more intricate than their handful of scenes together would indicate.
Lawrence’s film tackles a lot of big issues, narrowly skirting away from the “white saviour” narrative by addressing some of the problems the industry of “misery porn” creates for the victims of war and terror. It also largely avoids the saccharine ending, almost forgetting about the feelgood nature of the choir narrative, until the very end. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that healing from trauma is not a one-step event but a process that involves an entire community.
2019 | Australia | DIRECTOR: Ben Lawrence | WRITER: Ben Lawrence, Beatrix Christian| CAST: Hugo Weaving, Andrew Luri, Hayley McElhinney, Bolude Watson | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Entertainment| RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 15-17 June 2019 (SFF)
