Worth: $17.00
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Cast:
Saara Lamberg, Jayden Denke, Albert Goikhman, Kevin Dee
Intro:
...Westermarck Effect takes no prisoners, and that is worthy of celebration.
With her 2017 debut feature film Innuendo, Finnish-born, Australian-based writer/director/producer star Saara Lamberg announced herself as an unconventional, deeply idiosyncratic cinematic voice unafraid to delve into bizarre subject matter in a decidedly artful and confronting way. Her new film Westermarck Effect is considerably more accessible in style and tone, but its subject matter is even more explosive and potentially polarising, to say the very least.
Sam (talented and charismatic newcomer Jayden Denke) is a hedonistic, hard-partying ukulele-playing musician in his early twenties with nary a care or sensitive thought in the world. Constantly working his way through as many young women as he can, Sam is stopped in his tracks when he meets the strangely fragile and brittle Sally (Saara Lamberg is a singular screen presence), who is several years his senior. Their connection is strong and instantaneous, and it soon becomes obvious why: (and the film’s promotional materials and taglines mean this is no spoiler) Sally is actually Sam’s long-lost mother.
Taking this difficult subject matter by the scruff of the neck, Westermarck Effect (which takes its name from a hypothesis by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck) doesn’t skirt around the edges of anything. Though the realisation of their biological mother-son relationship kicks up much anguish and angst (powerfully elucidated in a gut-wrenching scene with Sally’s father, beautifully played by Albert Goikhman), Sam passionately persists in keeping them together. When the divisive relationship between Sam and Sally percolates to its very end-point, the results are unsettling but also disturbingly sweet.
Though peppered with the kind of problems typical of much low budget cinema (slightly uneven performances, moments of uncertainty in pacing and design), Westermarck Effect grips and stuns not just through its daring subject matter, but by the highly artistic manner in which it is platformed. Guaranteed to upset some sectors of the audience, Westermarck Effect takes no prisoners, and that is worthy of celebration.
Westermarck Effect screens at Lido Cinemas in Melbourne. Click here for all information.
