David O'ConnellMonkey Puzzle
September 29th 2009 05:45
After a string of stellar local films this year, it’s time to come crashing back down to earth after a visitation from 2008’s deplorable Monkey Puzzle. The debut of writer/director Mark Forstmann, this aimless, meandering drama barely keeps its head above water in an attempt to hook audiences on its paper-thin premise.
Four friends trek into the Blue Mountains over Easter in search of the fabled Wollemi Pine, otherwise known as the Monkey Puzzle tree. But progress is sluggish at best and they seem doomed to never find it, becoming regularly sidetracked along the way. The sexual dynamics of the group, upon which so much of the film’s credibility hinges, reveal its fatal flaw, being dishearteningly predictable and tame.
Childhood friends Dylan (Ryan Johnson) and Carl (Ben Geurens) are the instigators of the expedition, with female friends Pippa (Ella Scott Lynch) and tomboyish redhead Toni (Billie Rose Pritchard) tagging along. Somehow a fifth member and seedy acquaintance of Dylan, oddball drug-dealer Zac (Socratis Otto), also gets roped into participating but at least he's decent fodder for their juvenile joking around.
Unbeknownst to his friend, Dylan has started an affair with the vacuous Pippa but Carl also has an attentive eye fixed upon her, little suspecting poor Toni has been added to the mix to offer distracting bait. But everything goes pear-shaped after their map goes walkabout and a drunken Dylan inexplicably leaves their food supply out in the open for the forest’s natural inhabitants to feast upon during the first night. This leaves only Carl’s stash of Easter eggs to sustain them the rest of the way.
What will become of them all? By the end the only words on your lips will be - who the hell cares?
There’s no doubting Forstmann has chosen a rugged, interesting locale, one overflowing with dramatic potential, but he squanders it with a witheringly banal screenplay, the minimal impact of which is exacerbated by unconvincing acting from - it has to be said - an underwhelming cast. The various relationships are formed around nothing more substancial than circular, tedious interplay; sadly, this mob are as clichéd as they come, with barely a single conversation between them striking a convincing chord.
To little effect, Forstmann tries to achieve some kind of profound poetry from darker, introspective moments as their predicament deepens but fails momumentally. One of the group even mysteriously disappears off stage whilst another - again, predictably – gets injured, adding to the physical burden of those remaining.
The use of Amanda Brown’s music is a nice touch but her gently melodic, small-scale acoustics are in the wrong movie and begin to work against the turgid, shallow writing and its sense of going through the motions, headed toward an arbitrary cessation. Though Justine Kerrigan‘s cinematography captures the odd fleeting moment of grace from the landscape, signs abound of the minimal budget hampering this production at every turn - funded through private means it must be said - including the absence of any signs of life other than the five group members. Everything about Monkey Puzzle is thin on the ground and there’s not nearly enough depth in the writing to compensate in any way.
Shooting mostly in daylight only removes the primordial elements of their surrounds which may have complemented the dawdling daytime movement too. Maybe a Blair Witch Project element could have been angled in or at least a Man vs. Nature subplot in the vein of Australian classic Long Weekend (1978); even a gory encounter with the famed Pine tree as a means of obtaining squeals of delight from fans of William Friedkin's The Guardian (1990).
No such luck. Instead the group saunters along without any real only game plan in a film utterly devoid of intrigue or novel twists. And what do they have to guide them along their route? Only a dodgy compass and an inspirational t-shirt produced by the unstable Dylan whose real motivation is prodded loose later on without any dramatic effect; in fact, it's a wooden, near-embarrassing recital of words and one of this drab film's true low points.
This is one Australian production best forgotten despite the ingenuity that got it made in the first place. Maybe Forstmann will progress to better things but there’s little indication of it in this passive, dreary debut.
Four friends trek into the Blue Mountains over Easter in search of the fabled Wollemi Pine, otherwise known as the Monkey Puzzle tree. But progress is sluggish at best and they seem doomed to never find it, becoming regularly sidetracked along the way. The sexual dynamics of the group, upon which so much of the film’s credibility hinges, reveal its fatal flaw, being dishearteningly predictable and tame.
Childhood friends Dylan (Ryan Johnson) and Carl (Ben Geurens) are the instigators of the expedition, with female friends Pippa (Ella Scott Lynch) and tomboyish redhead Toni (Billie Rose Pritchard) tagging along. Somehow a fifth member and seedy acquaintance of Dylan, oddball drug-dealer Zac (Socratis Otto), also gets roped into participating but at least he's decent fodder for their juvenile joking around.
Unbeknownst to his friend, Dylan has started an affair with the vacuous Pippa but Carl also has an attentive eye fixed upon her, little suspecting poor Toni has been added to the mix to offer distracting bait. But everything goes pear-shaped after their map goes walkabout and a drunken Dylan inexplicably leaves their food supply out in the open for the forest’s natural inhabitants to feast upon during the first night. This leaves only Carl’s stash of Easter eggs to sustain them the rest of the way.
Ben Geurens as Carl
What will become of them all? By the end the only words on your lips will be - who the hell cares?
There’s no doubting Forstmann has chosen a rugged, interesting locale, one overflowing with dramatic potential, but he squanders it with a witheringly banal screenplay, the minimal impact of which is exacerbated by unconvincing acting from - it has to be said - an underwhelming cast. The various relationships are formed around nothing more substancial than circular, tedious interplay; sadly, this mob are as clichéd as they come, with barely a single conversation between them striking a convincing chord.
To little effect, Forstmann tries to achieve some kind of profound poetry from darker, introspective moments as their predicament deepens but fails momumentally. One of the group even mysteriously disappears off stage whilst another - again, predictably – gets injured, adding to the physical burden of those remaining.
The use of Amanda Brown’s music is a nice touch but her gently melodic, small-scale acoustics are in the wrong movie and begin to work against the turgid, shallow writing and its sense of going through the motions, headed toward an arbitrary cessation. Though Justine Kerrigan‘s cinematography captures the odd fleeting moment of grace from the landscape, signs abound of the minimal budget hampering this production at every turn - funded through private means it must be said - including the absence of any signs of life other than the five group members. Everything about Monkey Puzzle is thin on the ground and there’s not nearly enough depth in the writing to compensate in any way.
Ella Scott Lynch as Pippa
Shooting mostly in daylight only removes the primordial elements of their surrounds which may have complemented the dawdling daytime movement too. Maybe a Blair Witch Project element could have been angled in or at least a Man vs. Nature subplot in the vein of Australian classic Long Weekend (1978); even a gory encounter with the famed Pine tree as a means of obtaining squeals of delight from fans of William Friedkin's The Guardian (1990).
No such luck. Instead the group saunters along without any real only game plan in a film utterly devoid of intrigue or novel twists. And what do they have to guide them along their route? Only a dodgy compass and an inspirational t-shirt produced by the unstable Dylan whose real motivation is prodded loose later on without any dramatic effect; in fact, it's a wooden, near-embarrassing recital of words and one of this drab film's true low points.
This is one Australian production best forgotten despite the ingenuity that got it made in the first place. Maybe Forstmann will progress to better things but there’s little indication of it in this passive, dreary debut.
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Comment by Anonymous
Secret Writers Business
Time to Read !
you do keep yourself very busy.
Keep up the good work
Alex
aka quatro
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
I had real issues with the acting too which was pretty damn woeful at times.