Sugar Factory, The Review

Robert Carter wrote the novel The Sugar Factory and, like another Australian author Richard Flanagan who made The Sound of One Hand Clapping, has been given the chance to not only adapt his work to the screen but to direct it. Both films cover very similar territory. They deal with a person striving to integrate the past into their future. Harris (Matt Day) is a troubled young man, haunted by images he can`t explain, who`s in love with Helen ( Rhondda Findleton) a woman twice his age, a single mother with two children. Harris` breakdown occurs with the death of Helen`s daughter while he`s babysitting. At the halfway house where Harris is sent he witnesses a lot of seemingly aberrant behaviour and understands there`s usually a reason for it...This is a very sympathetic film from Robert Carter which maybe suffers from a slight lack of focus for the central character Max. It`s a bit hard to get a handle on him in all his manifestations, as a loony at his brother`s wedding, as a would-be lover of Helen, as a young man trying to work his way through life`s traumas. Interestingly shot by Andrew Lesnie with irritating music by Peter Best and generally adequate performances except young Eliot Paton is amazingly good as Helen`s young son Julius. David`s Comments:A modestly conceived adaptation, by the author of Robert Carter`s novel, this is a well-acted and intelligent, but rather dispiriting film. The experiences of the young man, very well played by Matt Day, aren`t really all that exciting on screen, especially after he arrives in the halfway house, where several of the characters are stock types rather than genuine creations. It`s really familiar territory, and Cariter isn`t able to give it the cinematic dimension needed to transcend the material. There are contrivances too, in the plotting. Day is the main reason to see the film, but he deserves better material.