Rain

Television commercial director Christine Jeffs makes her feature debut with this intense family drama about the collapse of a marriage and the dissolution of a mother-daughter relationship. Thirteen-year-old Janey (Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki) and her younger brother Jim (Aaron Murphy) are largely ...more

Rain doesn't have a particularly exciting or original plot, it suffers from a contrived and overly melodramatic ending, and it's too portentous for its own good (due in part to heavy-handed symbolism and overuse of slow motion shots). Nonetheless, director Christine Jeffs successfully conveys the languid mood of a hazy, booze-drenched summer vacation, thanks to the gorgeous cinematography by John Toon, a melancholy score by Neil Finn (from the rock bands Split Enz and Crowded House) and Edmund ...more