Careful, He Might Hear You

My favourite Aussie film. The ping boy is sensational in the role. Great casting all around. Wendy Hughes is stunning in the role. A forgotten gem of Australian cinema. All you hear about is Muriel's Wedding and The Castle. This one surpasses them.

One of Australia's great films of the 80s...big, lavish and crafted for an international audience.......along with GALLIPOLI, THE LIGHTHORSEMEN and MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER, "Careful"..is different in that it is set in Sydney harbourside suburbs of the 1920s......most period films made at this time are set earlier and are rural.....also like the sublime masterpiece THE IRISHMAN. The cast for "Careful" is theater professionals who fit the passionate personalities the extremely emotional and personal roles demand. Their transformation to film is also thanks to the great director Carl Schultz who also made the superb Australian films GOODBYE PARADISE and TRAVELLING NORTH. Much under employed here and almost forgotten ...... Nicholas Gledhill is still in Sydney theater and occasionally appears in fringe productions.

Robyn Nevin is the supreme being of the Sydney Theatre Company and the great Wendy Hughes is the goddess of the Australian screen.....see NEWSFRONT for that confirmation. The late great John Hughes such a genuine Australian man in his perfect realisation of the irresponsible but lovable main male character "Logan". This film is Australian screen perfection, however the end credits come too early.

This one is from Australia, and centers on an eight year old boy called P.S. (Nicholas Gledhill...this was his first role.) There's a tug of war for custody of P.S., between Aunt Lily and Vanessa. Right at the beginning, Lily tries to explain to the boy why he must go off with Vanessa, but he's only eight, after all. Quite a variation from the Auntie Mame story; here, its all serious education and proper behavior, pretty much the opposite of Mame. So much PINK! have you ever seen so much pink in one room? Large, imposing rooms. And not allowed to get out and play with others. Vanessa kept him all to herself. Not much fun for a youngster who had so much fun in Sydney. Here, he can't seem to do anything right. Vanessa thinks she is doing the right thing for him, but doesn't really know that a youngster wants to just play. Then, stuff happens... which might help turn things around for him.

Story by Sumner Elliott. The novel was written when he was about 46... film done when he was about 66; wonder if its his own story. Elliott was born down Undah, and died in NYC. Directed by Carl Schultz, who did mostly television projects. Finally it's out on DVD. Good story.

Surely one of the best modern films about childhood, this swept the Australian Academy Awards and remains a thrilling film experience. When a young boy is left orphaned, his two aunts wage a bitter custody war over him. We see the adults' actions from the boy's point of view, with all the wonder, confusion, and naive wisdom such an outlook would provide. The events have a wry edge even in tragedy and remain gripping even in happiness. Stay tuned through the final credits for one of the best epilogues in film history.

Wendy Hughes plays the dark side of Auntie Mame, and she is both entrancing and repulsive, ludicrous and heartbreaking. The late John Hargreaves delivers a shattering cameo, and young Nicholas Gledhill deserves to be named in the company of Jean-Pierre Leaud, Anton Glanzelius, and Haley Joel Osment. The child's-eye direction is never less than astonishing, while the cinematography and music are gorgeous enough to take your breath away. If you thought the squabble over Elian Gonzalez was great drama, wait till you see this!

Careful, He Might Hear You - the novel by Sumner Locke Elliott (a thinly disguised autobiographical piece) - is a meandering, but still engaging, narrative of a six-year-old Australian boy, orphaned at birth with the death of his mother and an forever absentee father. The movie - beautifully rendered and magnificently acted - is an intelligently adapted work, condensed for enactment, to be sure, but still faithful to the evolution of the events. However, the subtleties of the character interactions - so vital to the novel - were largely glossed over in the film, and that is its shortcoming. True, produced in 1983 in Australia, it is the product of film-making 40 years ago when the emphasis was more on story and less on character. The film does its best to bridge that gap - what success there is in defining the relationships is excellently attempted by the actors - they did all they could with the script they were given - but in the end we see very little of the emotions which drew them together and yet tore them apart. It is these emotions which are the guts of the story.

The boy - "PS" as he has been dubbed by his dying mother, who saw him as a beloved post script to the end of her determinedly daring life - is set in 1930s Australia. PS lives with Lila and George, his mother's older sister and her husband, who see him as their own. Their circumstances are modest in the those Depression years, but they are managing. Back into their lives comes Vanessa, yet another aunt/sister (there are still even two more), who has been living in England as a companion to Ettie, their family's wealthy cousin. It seems that PS' missing father has been persuaded to assign "Ness" with a role in PS' guardianship. A tug of war ensues between Lila and Vanessa for PS' allegiance, and it is his eventual destiny that is the story's denouement.

The acting is superb. Wendy Hughes and Robin Nevin as Vanessa and Lila, are restrained where they could have cut loose. John Hargreaves, as PS' still mostly absent father, was nobly worthless, which explained so much. Nicholas Gledhill, in his first role, is brilliant - he carries the film. The technical contributions - direction, cinematography, sets, lighting, sound, costumes, make-up - are all first rate.

If one has not read the book, I am sure the movie - in the 1980s - would be satisfying. But this story deserves so much more. Today, it would probably be done as miniseries - freeing the writer to bring out the characters, their relationships and their emotions, all of which are vital to understanding PS' journey to find himself.