Review: Wish You Were Here (2012)

Cast: Felicity Price, Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer
Director: Kieran Darcy-Smith
Country: Australia
Genre: Drama | Mystery
Official Trailer: Here

Editor’s Note: Wish You Were Here is now open in cinemas

“The Hangover without the jokes” might be the most appropriate descriptor for Wish You Were Here, were it not already laid claim to by The Hangover: Part II. Produced by Blue-Tongue Films, the leading Australian filmmaking collective whose prior credits include The Square and Animal Kingdom, as well as several excellent short films, this new movie embodies every strength of the growing production house—from its now A-list talent to the impeccable production values that have come to characterise its output—as it explores the aftermath of a drunken, drug-fuelled night that adversely impacts the lives of four holidaying friends in Cambodia.

“The Hangover without the jokes” might be the most appropriate descriptor for Wish You Were Here, were it not already laid claim to by The Hangover: Part II.

Gorgeously crafted by cinematographer Jules O’Loughlin, every one of Wish You Were Here’s frames beams with the beauty that might be expected of any postcard bearing those clichéd words. It’s a determinedly ironic title, of course, and as the drama unfolds around the missing-persons investigation launched when one of the travellers cannot be found, each of the characters finds themselves wishing they were somewhere—anywhere—else. They, eventually returned to Australia, are Dave and Alice, a married couple, and Alice’s sister Steph, whose boyfriend Jeremy is the missing party. Director Kieran Darcy-Smith, here making his feature debut, puts O’Loughlin’s lensing to spectacular use, his sharp alternations between warm and cold lighting instrumental—not to mention aesthetically appealing—in the differentiation of present-day and flashback scenes.

It’s a film where the impact hinges on the strength of the performances, dwelling as it does primarily on the intimacies and intricacies of Dave and Alice’s marriage as the gradual revelation of secrets puts their relationahip to the test. As played by Joel Edgerton and Felicity Price—who co-wrote the script with Darcy-Smith—these are characters as wary of each other as they are wounded by their experience; at every turn, each seems to withhold a nugget of information from the other, neither seeming content to allow their spouse full knowledge of their activities on that fateful night. This is a dynamic that might easily fall victim to contrivance, slowly teased as it is over a prolonged series of reluctantly-shared secrets. Edgerton and Price are too good to ever allow that, though, and the harrowing portrait of disintegrating love they construct between them easily bounds over the pitfalls the screenplay places in its way.

Director Kieran Darcy-Smith, here making his feature debut, puts O’Loughlin’s lensing to spectacular use, his sharp alternations between warm and cold lighting instrumental—not to mention aesthetically appealing—in the differentiation of present-day and flashback scenes.

Those pitfalls are prevalent in Darcy-Smith and Price’s work: for every success they attain in sculpting the central conflict, their tangential characters are less well-crafted, particularly Steph. Teresa Palmer makes good with what little she has, imbuing Steph with a commendable amount of humanity, but she is—at best—a plot point more than a real player in this drama. In fact, even Alice is an invention fraught with problems: perhaps it’s modesty on the part of Price to cast herself in a role that so clearly plays second fiddle to Edgerton’s; his is—rightly, we eventually see—an evolution of more interest to the film, but—wrongly—it’s at the expense of his wife that evolution arises.

A relationship drama masquerading in the garb of a mystery, Wish You Were Here plays merry hob with its generic framework to cut to the heart of its characters and the flailing relationship between them. It’s with the aid of a cinematographer to watch—O’Loughlin is currently at work on James Cameron’s deep-sea diving documentary—and a pair of powerful performances that Darcy-Smith is quite this successful in his debut; the dissatisfying ending at which the film eventually arrives is the ultimate testament to the scripting shortcomings that further works should seek to avoid. Perhaps, after all, the title is less ironic than it first seemed; Wish You Were Here isn’t so different to a tourist postcard: stunning to look at, covered with lines just waiting to be filled in.

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Ronan Doyle

Director of Movies On Demand & Sr. Staff Film Critic at Next Projection

Having spent the vast majority of my life sharing in the all too prevalent belief than cinema is merely dumbed-down weekend escapism for the masses, I was lucky enough to turn on a television at the exact right moment to have my perspectives on the medium completely transformed. Those first two and a half hours marked the beginning of a new life revolving around—maybe even depending upon—the screen and the depth of artistry, intellectual stimulation, and emotional exhilaration it can provide.

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