Movie Review: Long Story Short

Movie: Long Story Short

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Theatre: Hoyts Victoria Garden

Continuing my support of Australian cinema and the movie theatres is vital, as I love both ventures with all my heart, and being a warm night, with an even warmer flat, escaping to the movies just had to be done. Besides, I'd seen the trailers for Long Short Story - an Australian version of films like Sliding Doors and About Time which left me curious. 

And this was a good diversion. Not excellent, but really enjoyable. 

The film follows the story of Teddy (Rafe Spall) who, after meeting a woman in a graveyard who warns him about wasting time, finds himself gaining a year every few minutes, emerging on his wedding anniversary to Leanne (Zahra Newman) every ten minutes or so to find another year of his life has gone by, giving him a view of what life will be like if he keeps on the same track. Over this ten years of accelerated living, his child is born and grows up, his best mate has some issues and he divorces his long suffering wife - who are all completely oblivious to the predicament in which he finds himself.

It's a bit of a heavy-handed way of looking at life by living in the moment, and cherishing every second of time you have.

And it's an enjoyable, if somewhat laboured film. It's a bit sweet, a bit twee and it had a good moral to it - i.e. don't waste time - it's precious. 

Rafe Spall is affably annoying as Teddy, the man who is too quickly running out of time. Zahra Newman is glorious to look at and does her best the the average script, playing as his wife. Ronny Chieng is his very funny best mate. 

However, and this is the big however - the film was filmed in Bondi in Sydney and it shows the Sydney suburb with all it's charms. But I have a LOT of difficutly believing that two lowly paid office workers can afford a two bedroom flat on the Bondi foreshore - even ten years ago. And this is my biggest gripe about the film - it's already make believe, but this put another layer on the unbelieveablity. 

But, in the ilk of Sliding Doors and About Time, this does a good job. It's not as good as these other films, but it gives you a good two hours of entertainment. In these times, what more do you want?

Today's Song: