The trouble with mother

The Home Song Stories (M) Limited national release

The Home Song Stories (M) Limited national release

TONY Ayres's autobiographical drama The Home Song Stories is in many ways similar to Richard Roxburgh's film of Raimond Gaita's Romulus, My Father. Both films feature a man looking back on a troubled childhood and on his relationship with his mother who, in both cases, is an unstable and even destructive force.

The difference, of course, is that Roxburgh was directing once removed: it wasn't his story he was telling, but Gaita's. Ayres, on the other hand, in exploring his own childhood experiences, is working much closer to home.

It's unfortunate, in a way, that two films which are in essence so similar should be made and released in Australia so close together, but that's show business. Ayres is immensely talented, as witnessed by his extraordinary feature debut, the very moving Walking on Water (2002), an emotional story of a man dying of AIDS and the reactions of his friends and family.

Yet he's come up with a surprisingly muted story of his early life. The film seems to have been made as a way of exorcising the demons he has carried with him all his life about his mother: "If everyone has one story which defines them, then this is mine," is part of the voice-over at the beginning of the film, and later the narrator talks about "trying to understand her (the mother) and the things she did".

The film begins in Hong Kong, where Tom (the Ayres character), played by Joel Lok, lives with his unmarried mother, Rose (Joan Chen), a nightclub singer, and his older sister, May (Irene Chen). Rose has had many lovers and is neglectful of her children, but it seems as though things will change for the better when she decides to marry Bill (Steven Vidler), an Australian sailor. She moves with him to Melbourne, but Rose is profoundly ill-suited to life in the suburbs and after only seven days walks out on her new husband.

For her children this is the beginning of a turbulent period as their unstable mother moves from one "uncle" to another, and sometimes back to the amazingly forgiving Bill. In addition, Rose makes several attempts at suicide.

As there was in Romulus, there's a repetitiveness to the scenes set in hospital recovery wards and the long, hysterical arguments. Perhaps, in the end, the story was too personal: Ayres appears to be leading us in one particularly disturbing direction, but then he backs off.

That said, he's a fine filmmaker: his use of the Scope screen is accomplished, every member of his cast, especially the wonderful Joan Chen, gives a consummate performance, and the film is never less than involving; you just have the feeling it could have been developed further.

***THE first hurdle to overcome when watching No Reservations -- a Hollywood remake of the successful German romantic comedy Drei Sterne (Mostly Martha) made in 2001 -- is the concept that Catherine Zeta-Jones can't get a man. That was the basis for the German film, too, but in that case the character, played by Martina Gedeck, was far more down-to-earth and ordinary. Zeta-Jones isn't at all ordinary, and casting her as a woman with no life at all outside the trendy West Village, New York, restaurant where she's the head chef was unwise. It's typical, however, because Hollywood rarely bothers with realism on that level.

Remakes are mostly unnecessary and an indication of a lack of fresh ideas, and this is no exception. It's competently made, by Australian director Scott Hicks, and the scenes of food preparation are mouth-watering. Aaron Eckhart also seems miscast as the sous chef who finally brings romance into Kate's life (she's no longer called Martha), and Abigail Breslin, who was so cute in Little Miss Sunshine, is almost as cute here as Kate's orphaned niece who complicates her life. There's nothing really wrong with No Reservations, but there's nothing very interesting about it, either.

***THE appalling new vehicle for Adam Sandler,

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, isn't a remake, although it has been widely noted that the plot is suspiciously similar to that of the 2004 Paul Hogan-Michael Caton farce, Strange Bedfellows. Sandler is Chuck, a truly repulsive womaniser and bigot who is humanised when his widowed best friend Larry (Kevin James) seeks help over some ill-defined legal-financial problem. If he enters into a gay marriage in Canada (where such things are possible) his troubles are solved. It's desperately sad to see that this dross was co-written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, who wrote the marvellous Sideways.

It's not only offensive (as well as off-colour sexual jokes, the film is deeply racist), it's not in the least bit funny. The odious sentimentality of the last reel is particularly unattractive. Having said that, I must report that the audience with which I saw it roared their heads off.