Solid tale despite its flaws
130 minutes (M)
Andrew Adamson ( The Chronicles Of Narnia)
Hugh Laurie, Xzannjah, Healesville Joel, Eka Darville
Leigh Paatsch ADAPTED from the bestselling novel by Lloyd Jones, Mr Pip is a movie coming from a good place that takes you to a bad place.
While in no way a total downer of an experience, it is wise to steel yourself for a few severe jolts along the way. The setting is Bougainville Island, in the east of Papua New Guinea.
It is here, in the late 1980s, that a dispute between PNG military separatists and foreign mining interests has escalated into a desperate situation for the local community. Cut off from the outside world, and unfairly bearing the brunt of a brutal government crackdown, the good people of Bougainville are fearing the worst.
Mr Watts (Hugh Laurie) is an Englishman, a former actor married to a local woman. Watts has reluctantly accepted the role of community schoolteacher in the absence of anyone better qualified. Much of his curriculum is centred on reading aloud from the classic Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations.
This seemingly quaint choice of book goes on to have fateful implications for the future of all on Bougainville Island.
In particular, an inquisitive young girl named Matilda ( impressively played by newcomer Xzannjah). The highly emotive approach employed by writer- director Andrew Adamson in telling this story will not be to all tastes.
An unorthodox combination of magic realism (where Matilda re-imagines the Dickens yarn on Bougainville) and explicit violence (the regular visits by government forces are frightening in their authenticity) does take some considered processing.
A superb anchoring performance by Laurie does help simplify some of the complex themes in play.
The film earns its keep as a brave and ambitious drama in its best stretches.