Review: BITTER & TWISTED (Marya Murphy)
Posted by Marya
I’m not sure how to approach a review of BITTER & TWISTED. The synopsis and trailer are misleading, perhaps necessarily. It’s the kind of film that must be taken as a whole. The synopsis leads one to believe it will be a slightly quirky, rather dreary and melodramatic story about the effect of the death of a loved one on those left behind (with a little gayness thrown in for good measure). And it is that. But while skimming along with a fairly conventional story, it consistently and delightfully defies expectations, while always remaining genuine and truthful. It is outrageously funny at times, while never flouting its gently melancholic tone. And the quirk never stretches toward camp, but stays within the realm of the real.
Christopher Weekes (also interviewed here at CQ Central) wrote and directed this, his first film, and I’m eager to see what he does next. He cast himself in a charmingly cipherish role as Ben, the brother of the deceased Liam. It’s a role he seems to recede into, and an unlikely one for a child actor turned writer/director, which makes it all the more brave. He’s joined by a marvelous cast including the talented and beautiful Zooey-Deschanel-like Leeanna Walsman as the girlfriend of dead Liam, Indigo, who’s caught up in an affair with an older man. Noni Hazlehurst is marvelously moving as the grieving and lonely mother and wife of the emptied-out father played by Steve Rodgers. The four main characters are rich and fully-realized, and the lesser characters, the sister Lizzie and the scene-stealing Matthew Weston as Ben’s special friend, Matt, are developed enough to make the audience want more of them.
The film is well-written, confidently directed and brilliantly cast. Christopher Weekes has a great future, and I hope he finds a way to make more films. And to cast me in them.
Tags: BITTER & TWISTED, Christopher Weekes, CQ19, DRAMEDY, Reviews.
Trailer: BITTER & TWISTED
Posted by CQ Central
Trailer for Christopher Weekes’s Bitter & Twisted.
Bitter & Twisted showtimes at Cinequest 19
Tags: BITTER & TWISTED, Christopher Weekes, CQ19, DRAMEDY, TRAILER.
5Q: Christopher Weekes / BITTER & TWISTED
Posted by CQ Central
Christopher Weekes
1Q: Tell us a little about the origins of Bitter & Twisted, from writing to financing.
Bitter & Twisted is a film I wrote as a way to try and break into the industry after countless rejections from all the film schools back home in Sydney. I was twenty when I’d completed the first draft and not really knowing what I was doing, at first I tried sending it out to basically anyone at all I had contact with that I knew was working in film and television back in Australia…but of course no one seemed that interested in it at first. Read more
Tags: BITTER & TWISTED, Christopher Weekes, CQ19, DRAMEDY, Tribeca Film Festival.