the audience applauded

Simply Perfect

hyped garbage

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

John Duigan directed this sexy drama about Australian artist Norman Lindsay(played by Sam Neil) who has caused a scandal with his graphic(some say blasphemous) paintings. The church bishop sends idealistic young English Minster Anthony Champion(played by Hugh Grant) to try to persuade Lindsay to stop his painting, but he refuses, instead lecturing him and his wife Estella(played by Tara Fitzgerald) on their "prudish" ways, which the minster denies, but fails to notice how his own wife is intrigued by three very open women models also staying with Lindsay... Surprisingly good-natured film presents both sides evenly and intelligently, with no stereotyping. Quite provocative at times, but does at least offer everyone a happy ending.

I heard about this film when I saw Dennis Pennis describing the leading British actor as woody, and in this film he said it was like a chair being thrown into the room, so I was interested to see what I would think. Basically young Anglican priest reverend Anthony Campion (Hugh Grant) has been asked by the bishop to travel from England to Australia with his wife Estella (Brassed Off's Tara Fitzgerald) to visit the eccentric artist Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill). The reason for the visit is to try and stop his work getting out, he is prone to painting sexually controversial imagery, but specifically the work "Crucified Venus" is requested to be withdrawn from show. Anthony tries to stay composed about the opinions of the church, but staying in the artist's place he is shocked by it having no moral standards, especially when it comes to models like Sheela (Elle Macpherson) and Pru (Kate Fischer), and Lindsay's wife Rose (Pamela Rabe) not showing shame or embarrassment taking their clothes off to pose or have fun. But his wife Estella is having trouble also, she is sexually frustrated and has many urges she lusts to fulfil, trying to remain loyal to her husband she cannot help but be intrigued by the women who are free to be nude. By the end of the film Anthony realises that he can do nothing about the desire for Norman to release his latest work, especially as Estella is happy to be depicted in it, and she may have found some passion for her husband after all. Also starring Portia De Rossi as Giddy, Ben Mendelsohn as Lewis, John Polson as Tom and Mark Gerber as Devlin. Grant is indeed wooden and hardly contributes anything but smiling and being posh, Neill doesn't get much time on screen either, Fitzgerald is relatively good as the quietly lusting wife wanting to break free, and Macpherson is okay being naughty and getting her top off a lot. The story is pretty pointless, it seems like just an excuse to see women get their clothes off as often as possible, and if it is meant to make an audience laugh it doesn't do it very well, a silly and pretty boring erotic comedy. Adequate!

This film is not simply about eroticism. You cannot judge this film by this subject alone. Obvious it is about the contradiction between sexual seduction and Christian morality some hundred years ago. But it is also a homage to 19the century (English) symbolist sensuality-painting. For instance Opelia (Millais 1852). The 'fatale women' were also an important subject in this time. That's why the film is called Sirens. The 'paintings' and the female actors shown, reminds me most of Belgian painter and illustrator Rops (1833-1898). The film seems in someway anachronistic, because in the time the cars you see in the film, the artists painted in a more modern way. In the time of these English painters the cars were coaches. Reading more about this film, I understood that Norman Lindsay was a real Australian artist in the film depicted in the 30's. When he really lived as in this film he was living the dream of this symbolistic painters. The film nevertheless is a very good try to let us see this imaginary world. For most(?) of us it is important to have art to escape from reality.

Some would say that Sirens is not taken seriously because of the abundant nudity in the movie. And yes, it does seem at times that the movie exists only to display exactly why model (and here, wannabe actress) Elle Macpherson was nicknamed "The Body". But perhaps the reason the movie is not taken seriously is because it simply isn't any good. The movie drags and drags and then drags some more. The plot never seems to get going. It's a movie that has no energy to it, it just painfully slogs along in hopelessly dull fashion. The film is utterly predictable, you know where this is going right from the beginning but it sure does take its sweet time in getting to that inevitable conclusion. The movie sets itself up as a statement on organized religion's view on sex. But any kind of statement the filmmakers hoped to make is lost because the movie is simply too boring to hold anyones attention long enough to get their point across. The whole enterprise is not helped by some rather clumsy acting, most notably from Macpherson who certainly looks nice but struggles to deliver dialogue in a believable fashion. Hugh Grant and Tara Fitzgerald are reasonably decent in their roles but it's not enough to save this enterprise. Predictable, tedious, dull and at times rather laughable...that's Sirens in a nutshell.