Careful, He Might Hear You

Rating:
Summary: haunting custody story
Review: Careful he might hear you, is one of those old films I saw many times on VHS only because it has a beautiful score.17 years later the film stands up to the test of time and still gets me in a place where I am enthralled by the very young lead actors performance and Wendy Hughes performance as Vanessa.Its a dark tale about a little boy caught between the custody chains of two sisters and the fight they ensue to adopt him.Good stuff.

Rating:
Summary: An Aussie fairytale in the Grimm Bros. mode
Review: I'm afraid we have a difference of opinion here for CHMHY,split between pro and con. Well let me throw in my vote for the pro side.Ever since I first viewed this film it has haunted me,I knew I had to own it-so I got a copy of the tape,now I think I have to get the DVD.The performances all around are impeccable,Hughes,Nevin,and especially the child actor,Gledhill.I wonder whatever became of him? Was this just a flash in the pan role for him or did he go on acting regionaly?It is a performance of remarkable sensitivity and naturalism.That said the film itself looks great.Lush and golden the colors pop out at you.The musical score is one that I also had to seek out for its singular delicate beauty-is Ray Cook another regional talent, I can't think of another score that he has composed?It has a sort of P.Glass-like hypnotic quality.Then there is the story itself a shameless tearjerker I'll admit but so real, and skewed with a sense of unreallity-an almost supernatural quality near the end.(The Wendy Hughes boat departure scene,short as it is has a flash of "Titanic" terror about it,and at the same time a sad irony.Anyway this duality is what keeps me coming back to this film again and again.It's a small classic.

Rating:
Summary: A strange, textural film
Review: Schultz' "Careful, He Might Hear You" wholly evokes a city of contrasts [Sydney] in the 1930's and 40's and the intricate personalities of the characters entwined in a complex family custody battle of a young boy. More a psychological study of the leading female widow, the supporting cast are all exceptional.

Particularly successful in the leading female role is the fine Australian actor Wendy Hughes (most recently seen in the magnificent Melbourne Theatre Company 2003 production of Edward Albee's "The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?" with Phillip Quast) Also an undoubtable standout, I think, is Geraldine Turner, the irrepressible Australian performer with bewildering versatility, (recently see in Cameron Mackintosh's production of "The Witches of Eastwick" at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, Australia)

This beautiful period film will certainly not disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: A strange, textural film
Review: Schultz' "Careful, He Might Hear You" wholly evokes a city of contrasts [Sydney] in the 1930's and 40's and the intricate personalities of the characters entwined in a complex family custody battle of a young boy. More a psychological study of the leading female widow, the supporting cast are all exceptional.

Particularly successful in the leading female role is the fine Australian actor Wendy Hughes (most recently seen in the magnificent Melbourne Theatre Company 2003 production of Edward Albee's "The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?" with Phillip Quast) Also an undoubtable standout, I think, is Geraldine Turner, the irrepressible Australian performer with bewildering versatility, (recently see in Cameron Mackintosh's production of "The Witches of Eastwick" at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, Australia)

This beautiful period film will certainly not disappoint.

Rating:
Summary: a promise is a very sacred thing
Review: This Australian film directed by Carl Schultz was much heralded when it was first released, but viewing it now, one can't think why. Based on the novel by Sumner Locke Elliott and adapted by Michael Jenkins, this tale of two sisters over the custody of another dead sister's child, reads as soap opera with melodramatic flourishes and an awful sugary music score by Ray Cook. It's hard to admire DOP John Seale, particularly in the way he first presents the second sister bathed in light, and the child POV's shots, when the large picture is less than successful.
There is a certain Charles Dickensien element with one sister wealthy and the other poor, though you can guess which one demonstrates more maternal instinct. Not only is the rich one made neurotically afraid of thunder, she's also known as "the virgin queen". We aren't given any explaination for her greater wealth, though naturally she gets better lighting and wardrobe.
It's to Wendy Hughes' credit that she manages to maintain some dignity, given the obstacles Schultz puts in her way. However, as the poor sister, Robyn Nevin isn't so lucky, which is practically a crime given Nevin's legendary status as a stage performer. Nevin actually had a triumph in a TVM of Locke Elliott's Water Under the Bridge. That story was a large scale exercise in irony, something which is only suggested here in the fate of Hughes. The only actor that is alowed to invest some truth and feeling is John Hargreaves as the errant father of the child, unfortunately a minor role.
What is one to think of Schultz when he labours over schoolyard humiliations of the child, played with an adult knowingness by Nicholas Gledhill, has Hughes project her female frustrations onto the child, and has Gledhill lead a party gathering of children in a mock parade of Hughes' cries of anguish? It's all pretty icky stuff and a compliment to no one concerned.

Rating:
Summary: Careful He Might Say Dickensien
Review: This is one of my favorite movies ever. I was thrilled to search for it on DVD at a whim and find it is available. It's an excellent drama to get lost in. "Careful..." is one of those movies you can sink into. It's a book of a movie. The first clue is that it's all about character development. I highly recommend this movie as an avid movie goer. My advice is,ignore the review that uses the word "Dickensien". Dickensien?!

Rating:
Summary: Careful He Might Say Dickensien
Review: This is one of my favorite movies ever. I was thrilled to search for it on DVD at a whim and find it is available. It's an excellent drama to get lost in. "Careful..." is one of those movies you can sink into. It's a book of a movie. The first clue is that it's all about character development. I highly recommend this movie as an avid movie goer. My advice is,ignore the review that uses the word "Dickensien". Dickensien?!

Rating:
Summary: Australian soap opera.
Review: Though with some shocking, dirty twists. The title and the rather kinky cover-art for this DVD prove correct your darkest suspicions about this movie: yes, "you-know-what" really happens in *Careful, He Might Hear You*, though with a quite different aftermath than you might expect. It's about two sisters in a custody battle over their 7-year-old nephew (a startling, talented Nicholas Gledhill) in 1930's Australia. The mother has died from the birth, but not before pegging the poor little bugger with the name "PS", e.g., "a postscript to a ridiculous life". Robyn Nevin is the lower-middle-class auntie whom PS would prefer to live with; Wendy Hughes is the very wealthy auntie who suddenly takes an interest in the boy, for frightening psychological reasons that will be made clear soon enough. Hughes is just marvelous as the rich, beautiful, and sexually sociopathic aunt Vanessa. This character is a whole new variation on the wicked stepmother archetype. Her abusive behavior stems from a fearful frigidity -- though WHY she is frigid is left unexplained by director Carl Schultz, as is the reason for Vanessa's much vaster wealth in comparison with her working-class sister. At face value, everything remains on the surface in *Careful* -- any psychological or philosophical nugget-hunting in these characters' lives will have to be done by the viewer. Indeed, the movie is very much a latter-day Sirkian (is that less offensive than "Dickensian"?) melodrama, complete with an over-the-top score that takes some getting-used-to, but which also fits the material grandly, especially after you accept the film's logic. The image is overflowing with profuse flora, fauna, trinkets, details -- anything that's colorful. Recently, *Far from Heaven* has tried to mine this same vein -- it failed, because it was too overt in its copycatting. Here, Schultz goes for the feel of old melodramas, but rather than re-hash something like *All that Heaven Allows*, he relies firmly on an obscure novel by Sumner Locke Elliott. The originality of the subject-matter helps Schultz to avoid being a pale imitator. Instead, he emerges as an ENLARGER of Sirk's style, themes, and characterizations. Indeed, it is a measure of Schutlz' subtlety that by movie's end, you realize that you feel pity for Vanessa, whom you thought you had reviled, while simultaneously thinking that the "decent", poorer aunt is more tiresome -- and limiting -- than at first seemed apparent. Meanwhile, the boy's a hero through all this, easily demonstrating the petty insanity of the adults who unfortunately determine the courses of his life. *Careful, He Might Hear You* is quite simply a modern classic that demands to be discovered. [The DVD, by Image Entertainment, looks pretty good, but there are zero features -- not even a trailer. I guess Image goes broke just by securing the rights to masterpieces like this; hence the lack of any effort put into the product. I guess I should be glad they took the trouble to put it on DVD in the first place.]