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| Walking on Water |
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  (6/10)
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Runtime: 90 m |
| Public Rating: 8.80 (5 votes) |
Director: Tony Ayres |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 2002 |
| Writer(s): Roger Monk |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Avril Carruthers |
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Staring Vince Colosimo, Maria Theodorakis, Nathaniel Dean, Judi Farr, Nicholas Bishop, David Bonney, Daniel Roberts, Anna Lise Phillips.
Written by Roger Monk
An intense, sombre, character-driven film about how a group of close friends and family handle the death of one of them, Walking on Water is not exactly an edifying film, though it is undoubtedly one in which many people may recognise themselves in such a situation.
Gavin (David Bonney) is in the end stages of leukaemia and together with his best friends Charlie (Vince Colosimo) and Anna (Maria Theodorakis), who is also his business partner and housemate, he has made a pact that they will help him end his life before the suffering becomes too great. Family arrive - his mother Margaret (Judi Farr), brother Simon (Nathaniel Dean) and sister-in-law Kate (Anna Lise Phillips). Everyone in the close circle seems prepared for the sad journey they all have ahead, the solemn looks, small painful smiles, the silence and weight of every action setting the scene for a dignified farewell. The time comes, a sympathetic doctor administers several vials of morphine while those who were close to Gavin watch. The atmosphere is tense with compassion and dread. Gavin’s every laboured breath is emphasised in a way many viewers will have experienced at a dying person’s bedside. The family wait in nerve-wracked silence, expecting that each lengthening silence between the breaths will signify Gavin has gone. When twice he gasps again the frustration is agonising. Finally the body is still and empty of breath, the doctor starts writing out the time of death and Kate and Margaret abruptly leave the room to go out into the fresh air. Margaret lights a cigarette with sharp, tense movements. Back in the room, Charlie, Anna and Simon remain, then the unthinkable happens and Gavin starts to breathe again. Charlie, who with Anna has nursed Gavin for the past eighteen months, cannot bear it. He grabs a plastic bag and suffocates Gavin with it. Gavin’s mouth under the tight plastic opens in a sight which will haunt Charlie, Anna and Simon for a long time to come.
What happens after this is the charting of the journey each bereaved person takes in their own way expressing grief, guilt, blame, regret and anger. Vince Colosimo gives Charlie a weight and intensity which is wholly convincing as an underlying emotional state caused by guilty flashbacks and necessitating some extreme measures in attempts to blot out consciousness, including drinking Gavin’s left-over morphine, other drugs and alcohol. The deepening intensity of his pain, which in no way is alleviated by his addictions, results in his lover Frank (Nicholas Bishop) leaving him. Maria Theodorakis as Anna is the least sympathetic character. She hotly resents anyone else expressing their grief, refuses to let Gavin’s mother or anyone else contribute or help organise the funeral and compulsively keeps a lid on her fear and pain by controlling everyone and everything. Deprived by Anna of the gift of being able to give something towards her son’s passing, Margaret is reduced to sneaking a memento from his bedroom into her handbag. She returns home as soon as she can and Kate accompanies her while Simon stays behind for the ashes. Anna begins a passionate fling with Simon. Her intense control can only find an outlet in sex, while Simon is numb with shock and simply wants to feel alive again. The progress of the grieving cycle is inexorable and must uncover all that is false: false guilt, betrayal, anger, jealousy and the illusion of loss, till all is emptied.
The characters all ring grittily true, the acting is deeply believable and while what we see is unpleasantly real we can relate to it. Everyone in the movie tries to numb their pain, even when they believe they want to feel. So it’s normal for everyone in this movie to drink excessively, smoke more or less constantly, take recreational drugs or have wild, abandoned sex all in a kind of frenzy of denial.
However, it seems like only an extension of their normal behaviour, when they have no-one to grieve for. This is entirely director Tony Ayres’ intention, to make something that speaks the ordinary truth about people’s actions and reactions. He is helped in this by the exceptional talents of Production Designer Rebecca Cohen, Director of Photography Robert Humphries and Composer Antony Partos. Because of this authenticity and because of the way that truth allows the effortlessly comic there are also some very funny moments in all the intensity and bleakness. Anna and Charlie’s bickering in the florist’s about what flowers to have on the casket, and Anna’s later furious ripping out of Babies Breath from the floral tribute skirt around the comic without really allowing us to laugh. The pain Anna causes is too lacerating. She will not let go, and therefore doubles the pain of everyone else.
There is a lot of water in this movie but it seems somewhat random to the point where I feel the title Walking on Water is not so profound. This is about ordinary human beings who have lost a loved one and there is not the least metaphysical element nor is there any intended. If it is seen symbolically then perhaps water as a symbol of the unconscious mind is somewhat appropriate, for all the characters strenuously avoid delving into any deeper meaning. And though by the end there are truths that have been faced and guilt and blame laid to rest, we might feel it is simply the least of what could be fathomed. They really only get their toes wet.
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