Children Of The Revolution (1996)

Children Of The Revolution (Australia 1996 101min.)  Directed and written by Peter Duncan

"What do you do when your father is no ordinary Joe?"

Political comedy drama starring Judy Davis, Sam Neill and Richard Roxburgh. Joan is a fanatical Australian communist whose devotion to the party is rewarded when she is invited to meet her hero, Josef Stalin. The two have a brief affair which produces "Little Joe", who, in his later life, demonstrates serious political ambitions of his own.

Another in the chain of small, charming, comedy drama films that emerged from Australia during the mid and late nineties. Very much mining the same vein as the likes of Muriel's Wedding (1994) , Diana & Me (1997) and The Dish (2000) .

Judy Davis plays a young woman living in 1940's Australia besotted with the idea of bringing Russian-style worker's revolution to her homeland. She's pursued romantically by Geoffrey Rush, who has no love of revolutionary politics but feigns an interest in the course of his wooing.

She's also of interest to Sam Neill as an Australian secret service agent with a secret or two of his own to keep.

After being invited to Russia to meet Stalin she returns to Australia and, nine months later, there's a rather surprising addition to her life.

It's a very slight and sound plot, more of a stage play than a cinematic experience, but the performances are all so adept that the shortcomings are easily covered over and the film moves along smartly to it's predictable but still well handled conclusion.

Davis and Neill are both excellent and there's sure handed work among the support cast from Rachel Griffiths as a pseudo S&M clad police officer and the always fine F.Murray Abraham as Joe Stalin.

The scenes within the Kremlin before and during Davis's visit are clever and funny by turn, the "disappearance" of several of Stalin's secretaries for unspecified crimes against the state is especially amusing.

Duncan cleverly cuts newsreel footage (both real and doctored) into his film and has a fluid style (although this sometimes runs away from him leaving shots hanging in mid-air) and it never quite lives up to it's satirical ambitions.

Despite this the film cracks along at a sprightly pace, has some moments of genuine comedy and farce and scores with a few of it's satirical points.

An enjoyable, if lightweight, film.