Love Serenade

A middle-aged disc jockey becomes romantically entangled with a pair of sisters in this quirky Australian comedy. Vicki-Ann Hurley (Rebecca Frith) and her younger sister Dimity (Miranda Otto) are both feeling stagnant in the tiny outback town of Sunray, and they welcome the distraction provided by the arrival of Ken Sherry (George Shevtsov), a formerly popular radio personality fallen on hard times. Despite his present circumstance, the burnt-out Sherry retains an aura of faded prestige that attracts both sisters. Vicki-Ann sets out to seduce the disc jockey, but it is Dimity who first draws Sherry's attention, setting the stage for a conflict between the sisters. First-time filmmaker Shirley Barrett plays this conflict not for romantic melodrama but for comedy, focusing on how Vicki-Ann and Dimity adapt to their experiences with the mysterious Sherry, whose enigmatic demeanor may hide a deeper secret. Barrett plays out this triangle against a detailed portrait of a failing town, emphasizing the distinctive local color and oddball characters in a manner that should appeal most to those with a taste for the unusual. — Judd Blaise



In Sunray, a backwater town on Australia's Murray River, there's little to do but fish or listen to the local radio station. D.J. Ken Sherry arrives from the hustle of Brisbane to run the station; he's mid-40s, detached, thrice divorced, hatchet faced. But both sisters next door find him attractive: awkward Dimity, only 20, who works in a Chinese restaurant with few patrons, and perky Vicki-Ann, a hairdresser with a hope chest who invents a happy future with Sherry based on little but his arrival. First Dimity then Vicki-Ann spend the night with Ken, one concluding he's her boy friend, the other her fiance. Then Dimity begins to smell something fishy. Written by {jhailey@hotmail.com}




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