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Children Of The Revolution

1996, Movie, R, 101 mins

Children Of The Revolution: Review

CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION
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Uneven, absurdist comedy about an Australian Communist who has a brief encounter with her hero, Josef Stalin, and bears his child. The latter grows up to be a right-wing militant intent on ruling Australia. We first meet Joan Fraser (Judy Davis) in 1949: Stalin runs the Soviet Union with a firm hand, and Joan is the most radical of her Sydney circle of party members, who gather in the local pub. She writes letters to the Russian dictator (F. Murray Abraham), offering to serve as his Australian voice, and while her Stalin fixation irks boyfriend Zachary (Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush), he's a tolerant fellow -- that is, until Stalin notices Joan's devotion and invites her to visit him in the Kremlin, where they have an improbable one-night stand. Stalin expires soon after, and Joan is left with "Little Joe," who at an early age exhibits the distinctive Stalinist temperament. Ironically, as Joe grows older he veers to the extreme right, and by the late '80s the movie's Australia is close to civil war, with grown-up Joe (Richard Roxburgh) leading the reactionary forces. Though writer-director Peter Duncan can hardly help but touch on volatile political issues, he seems oddly without a political point of view. His film wavers between farce and satire, relying on the savvy Davis to give the proceedings more backbone than they deserve. As a mysterious spy, Sam Neill, typically, is detached, but Rachel Griffiths -- who stole MURIEL'S WEDDING right out from under Muriel, is delightful as a Latvian mounted policewoman who knows a thing or two about handcuffs. leave a comment
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