Film

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ROMANTIC COMEDY LOOK BOTH WAYS (12A) 97min as

Nick and Meryl see dead people. In particular, they envision their own dastardly ends. Whether by shark- attack, lung cancer, or GBH from a particularly unfriendly neighbour, this pair of befuddled thirty- somethings fail to see anything beyond their own continually threatened mortality. Drawn together by the death of a stranger crushed on the tracks of their neighbourhood freight-train line, photojournalist Nick (William Mclnnes) and postcard-painter Meryl (Justine Clarke) begin to share their mutual obsessions in this gentle Australian drama that surprisineg casts itself as a romantic comedy. Admittedly, Nick’s recent diagnosis of testicular cancer warrants some morbid attention, but Meryl’s sticky end is as fabricated as the hackneyed world of the quirky-but-tortured artist she inhabns.

The worthy aspirations of writer/director Sarah Watt’s

22 THE LIST 17—2-1 Aug 2006

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feature debut are flecked with humanistic sincerity in what is essentially a study of mankind’s fear of the inevitable. Its humble and relatively benign meditations never claim to come to any lofty revelations, but Look Both Ways’ disinterest in establishing insight is also its downfall. The film’s meekIy-voiced yet entirely honourable intentions are dampened with wet sentimentality, while unrelenting poppy animations resemble grim outtakes from A-l-la’s ‘Take On Me’ music video and children’s classic The Snowman. And although the performances from leads Mclnnes and Clarke lend credibility to heavy subject matter, their cringey conversations remain turgid or simply tedious. By relying on prosaic humility over ambition, the film fails to reach any significant conclusions despite its languorous pace and superfluous supporting cast. Death appears to elude Nick, Meryl and all their friends, much to the detriment of the action of the film, as well as its audience. (lsla Leaver-Yap) I General release from Fr; 78 Aug.

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