by Erin Free
Worth: $17.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Ivan Aristeguieta, Francis Greenslade, Florence Noble
Intro:
A gorgeously designed black comedy with a big brain and a loudly beating heart...
The 1993 comedy classic Groundhog Day has a lot to answer for. Popularising the concept of the “time loop” – whereby one is stuck to relive the same time period again and again – the film’s influence has been keenly felt across genres in everything from rom-com (Palm Springs) and sci-fi (Edge Of Tomorrow) to horror (Happy Death Day) and crime (Run Lola Run). Now it comes to Australia in the wry, very quirky form of Yesterday Island.
The film is written and directed by Sam Voutas, who demonstrates an off-kilter sense of humour and melancholy, and control of a visual formalism that would make Wes Anderson proud.
Yesterday Island begins with Amos (Ivan Aristeguieta) disembarking on a remote island where he is to briefly fill in for his former university tutor Dusty (Francis Greenslade), with whom he shares a somewhat fraught past. When Dusty leaves, however, Amos slowly realises that he has been lured into a time loop situation, and that the only way he can get out of it is by luring someone else to the remote island to replace him. The first and most obvious choice is his ex-wife Gemma (Florence Noble), which leads to an increasingly curious cavalcade of inventive twists and turns.
Beautifully exploiting his harsh, remote Tasmanian locations with its quirkily art directed collection of cabins, director Sam Voutas crafts his own odd little world where big moments and existential crises are met with a jaundiced, constantly cock-eyed guilelessness that is never less than utterly charming.
His performers are all top-notch too. Ivan Aristeguieta is a delight, exhibiting a rare naturalism tinged with real sweetness. He shares great chemistry with Florence Noble, whose comic dryness is a joy to behold. Gifted comic actor Francis Greenslade is perfect as the petty and casually cruel Dusty.
Yesterday Island deals with major moral issues like social responsibility, personal survival over decency, and the nature of fate and revenge. It’s heady stuff, but it’s presented in such a droll, off-handed manner that it’s only later that you realise what a seriously minded film you’ve been watching. A gorgeously designed black comedy with a big brain and a loudly beating heart, Yesterday Island is the kind of movie you wouldn’t mind getting stuck with again and again.
