Siam Sunset
Siam Sunset
| 09 September 1999 (USA)
Siam Sunset Trailers

A British design executive, who seemingly has everything going for him has his life totally changed when a refrigerator falls from an aircraft and lands on his wife...

Reviews
Gutsycurene

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

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Sameer Callahan

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

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Fatma Suarez

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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Deanna

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

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reinventingm

It's been over a decade since I first caught this film and I've got to say that in spite of playing with stereotypes, it still has a rare quality; something quintessentially Australian entirely devoid of our renowned cringe factor. Linus Roache, Danielle Cormack and Ian Bliss bring each of their characters to life with great craft and humour. Two Hands is the Sydney experience, Animal Kingdom is the Melbourne experience but Siam Sunset is the completely Oz experience. John Polson and the writers Max Dann and Andrew Knight did a wonderful job in highlighting many of our quirks and mores (for better or for worse) in a thoughtful and funny as hell way as we follow Perry (Roache) - the hapless disaster magnet from England through the shockingly funny death of his wife, his suburban London life crippled by the memories, and on to the tourist trip from hell as he sets off from Adelaide into the red heart of Australia. Grace (Cormack) and Martin (Bliss) are two of the most original cinema characters I've seen in years. In fact, these two characters remind me of many people I've known over the years, so in spite of comments of this movie playing to populism or stereotypes, I can't help but watch it and see the opposite. Alan Borough shines as Stuart - the Stratocaster-mangling singer songwriter and Bill Leach (Roy Billing) who still sticks in my mind not so much as the bus driver from hell, but rather as a ubiquitous bureaucrat of the worst order. Overall a surrealist but highly accurate and well observed ninety minute odyssey that will keep you laughing years after you've experienced it.

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zipzap

A wonderful, black farce. The idea of an industrial chemist whose wife is killed by a refigerator accidentally dropped from an air cargo liner, learning to laugh about it under a starlight Australian outback sky with a woman on the run from a psycho is...well...perfect. If you don't like the opening premise -- his loving marriage is terminated by a dropped fridge from the sky -- you're not going to like this. But if you can stay with it, you'll find a perfectly constructed, slaptstick noir with wonderful views and extremely concise, clever dialogue. The bonus is a number of wacky twists and turns, including a very poisonous serpent and a sagging electric ceiling fan. And the very last picture is a beautiful technical tour de force which you'll love. Linus Roache underplays nicely, and the female lead is as sexily Australian as we always dreamed of. The seemingly cliched B-parts actually come to life. This is 'The Castle' with a star cast and a few extra million for effects. You miss it and you're a drongo.

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spmovies

I really enjoyed this movie, as did the two others who attended with me. The humour is quirky and often unexpected. The message of the movie is, in my view, make the best of what life throws at you -- and for the main character, life throws quite a bit!!

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Simon-54

I enjoyed this movie. It isn't a classic, but its quirky black comedy should ensure a big following (how many films are about people killed by a fridge falling from the sky?!). As an Englishman living in Australia, I suppose it appealed, as that is the core of the film, and English chemical engineer winning a trip to Australia. The film shows great contrast between the two countries and duly ridicules both. Maybe you have to have been to Australia to appreciate the caricatures of the characters on Bill's bus trip, I'm not sure, but they're done superbly - but maybe act as a bit of a distraction in some ways. There's some excellent black humour, and the lead character's search for the perfect shade of paint is a harmless but involving aspect. I'm not sure the message director John Polson was trying to portray, but that didn't matter to me. If you know Australia and Australians, pay a visit to this film - you'll love it.

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