Beautiful Kate [MA]

Ned has returned to his family farm in South Australia for the first time in decades, seeking to introduce his family to his young bride and reconcile with his estranged and dying father Bruce. But as soon as Ned gets there, he’s haunted by memories and flashbacks of sexual awakening, repressed guilt, and a long-suppressed family secret. 

Another confronting and gritty drama that makes up Australia’s cinematic repertoire! Freud would probably have a field day with some of the stuff that goes on this movie… or any psychiatrist for that matter. A subtly gripping story with a clear message that the past is never truly behind us, Beautiful Kate is a film both beautiful and tragic. 

Ned has returned to his family farm in South Australia for the first time in decades, seeking to introduce his family to his young bride and reconcile with his estranged and dying father Bruce. But as soon as Ned gets there, he’s haunted by memories and flashbacks of sexual awakening, repressed guilt, and a long-suppressed family secret. 

It seems that us Aussies have a flair for depicting the gritty, primal traits of humanity that get exacerbated by our surroundings and the environments we inhabit. Set in an isolated farmland, great drama and power lies within the movie’s minimal cast and its simple story of a man being haunted by his past. 

What’s particularly interesting about the movie is that it’s a film where it’s hard to determine who is actually a character to root for. By the time the credits start, the only person you can really come to love is Sally, Ned’s sister. Two separate stories run side by side, making a subtle but climactic cohesion towards the end where the traumas of both the past and the present can be laid to rest. 

The performances are all stunning, particularly that of newcomer Sophie Lowe who features as Kate. 

Ben Mendelsohn, who stars as Ned, delivers a captivating performance as a man haunted right from start to finish. Whilst never really relating to this guy, you cannot help but be completely enthralled with him and his actions because it just seems that everything he does has a story behind it. There’s a lot of mystery and complexity to the character of Ned and Ben did the role really well. 

Starring Maeve Dermody, Rachel Griffiths, Josh McFarlane, Sophie Lowe, Daniel Binks, Heloise Baker, Briony Kent, Scott O’Donnell, and Bryan Brown, Beautiful Kate is a little bit of a sleeper, but a mesmerising film. Filled with drama, secrets, mystery, guilt, romance, and redemption, it isn’t a movie that you can jack whack on for the hell of it, you really do need to be in the mindset: that gritty mindset of the Aussie drama. But it is a good film.