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Accidents Happen (Film)

by Annette Basile | April 19, 2010 15:35 | Edited April 19, 2010 15:47

This dark-humoured and deeply moving film features brilliant performances

The less you know about this film's plot, the more you'll get out of it. That's not to imply that there's a big reveal or a "not-to-be-discussed" ending - there isn't. But it has its surprises. Suffice to say, it is, as the title suggests, about accidents­ - from everyday mishaps to "very bad accidents", which, as the narrator tells us, "have a charming way of not seeming real."

 

An Australian-British co-production, set in Connecticut but shot in Sydney, the film opens in 1974 but soon cuts to the eighties, an era that it perfectly captures. The film's focus is teenager Billy Conway (Harrison Gilbertson) and his struggling family, which is headed by matriarch Gloria (Geena Davis). The performances are all brilliant: Harrison Gilbertson is flawless in the central role, Sebastian Gregory (Beautiful) is magnetic as Billy's friend Doug, and Geena Davis, who fires out a stream of sarcastic lines, is a powerhouse as Billy's mum. It's a finely balanced character - tough yet vulnerable - and the always likeable Davis shows another side of her talents in what must be her best performance yet.

  

Accidents Happen is not easy to pigeonhole. It's a coming of age drama, a black comedy, and a film about families and grief. It's cloaked in dark humour, but has a profoundly moving core, and while grief is one of its themes, it's not remotely depressing. It's cathartic. It aims at the sorts of emotions that many of us have carefully kept buried, only to release them.

 

Accidents Happen, a runner-up in the audience award stakes at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival, announces Australian debut feature director Andrew Lancaster as a talent to get extremely excited about. If one of the measures of a film's greatness is how long it stays with you after you leave the cinema, then on that basis alone, Accidents Happen is a great film indeed.