PALM BEACH : Friday 9th August 2019.

I saw 'PALM BEACH' towards the end of last week, and this M Rated Australian drama comedy offering is Directed and Co-Written by Australian Actress, film and television Director and Screenwriter Rachel Ward and stars an ensemble cast set amidst the back drop of Palm Beach on Sydney's Northern Beaches. The film had its Premier screening at the recent Sydney Film Festival, went on general release in Australia on 8th August and has so far met with mostly mixed Reviews.




To mark a milestone birthday, Frank (Bryan Brown and real life husband of Rachel Ward) and his wife Charlotte (Greta Scacchi) decide to throw a three-day party to celebrate at their luxurious house at Palm Beach, welcoming their nearest and dearest friends. Frank flies in long term friends Leo (Sam Neill) and his wife Bridget (Jacqueline McKenzie) and Billy (Richard E. Grant) and his wife Eva (Heather Mitchell) from various corners of the globe having arrived Business Class in Sydney and then flown by private charter seaplane upto the ritzy Northern Beaches oceanside suburb of Palm Beach. Upon arrival the two couples are ushered into the spectacularly lavish, light, airy and spacious home overlooking the peninsula out to the lighthouse perched atop Barrenjoey Headland. Almost immediately the Dom Perignon is flowing and the gathered families including adult children sit down to a lavish meal of prawns, oysters, salmon, more Champagne and wine aplenty. By now we have also learned that Frank, Leo and Billy were once involved in a band together called 'The Pacific Sideburns' who had one hit record called 'Fearless' back in 1977 but little beyond that.

Rounding out the guest list are Frank and Charlotte's grown up kids - the aimless son Dan (Charlie Vickers) and new doctor Ella (Matilda Brown, and real life daughter of Brown and Ward), with Caitlin (Frances Berry) the daughter of Leo and Bridget, together with Holly (Claire van der Boom) the daughter of a departed friend and her new sheep farmer beau Doug (Aaron Jeffrey).

After a satisfying lunch, the hosts and guests all settle down in various parts of the house enjoying a night cap and pleasant conversation. All that though is about to implode as Leo confides in Charlotte that he had a recent skin cancer scare from which he is now fully recovered and that he deeply regrets a decision they and Frank made together twenty years ago and is now willing to tear their families apart so that the truth can finally emerge. This news comes as a devastating blow to Charlotte who Leo tasks with telling Frank of his decision after all these years. Just then Leo and Charlotte are called into the lounge to watch an award winning French TV commercial for adult incontinence nappies put together by Billy but using their song 'Fearless' as the backdrop to the ad. No one up to this point has seen the ad, not even Eva, and when Leo and Frank hear their music in the background they are needless to say furious.

The next morning Frank makes his peace with Billy and they all go off for a surf. And so another day begins and so does another day of eating and drinking. Amidst all of this Frank tasks his guests with the construction of an outdoor pizza oven, Bridget lets it slip that she believes that Leo has never really loved her, and Eva as a jobbing Actress is torn between a part playing a grandmother in an upcoming movie much to Billy's constant derisory comments that at 60, she is still too young to be playing such roles, despite the fact that such roles are the only one's now being offered to her.

Added to this there is Holly and Doug's emerging romance, the fact that Frank is secretly on anti-depressants and ever since he sold his hugely successful sportswear company, 'Swagger Gear', he has felt 'dead inside' and he can barely relate to his no hope son, Dan. And the final insult to Frank is Billy's constant comments about twin chimney pots blotting the view from the house out across the Headland and the two bodies of water either side - to which Frank responds after several niggling comments by taking a hammer to said chimney pots in a fit of rage, only to be rescued down from his ladder by his gathered friends, but not before Frank has muttered a few terse words in their direction.

The next night the friends are all taken by boat to a beachside restaurant where more celebrations follow and a firework display in Frank's honour. Ella makes a speech to mark her fathers birthday which starts off very negatively but ends on a positive one to which Frank is invited to respond but is so overcome with emotion that he can't. One on the walk home Holly reveals to Doug after he has asked for her hand in marriage, that she is not the one for him, and he is obviously knocked for six by her rebuttal.

The next day the group board the boat once again and head up the waterway to a secluded spot and enjoy another lavish lunch at a picnic spot under the trees. Doug has repaired the outboard motor to Franks speed boat, so enabling Dan to take out Caitlin on a doughnut. While speeding along Dan is distracted and to avoid a collision with a youngster enjoying himself out on the water swerves the boat, loses control and is tossed overboard and knocked unconscious in the fall. He is rushed to hospital in an ambulance with a very concerned Frank and Charlotte by his side, while the other house guests all return to Palm Beach in a very sombre mood awaiting news. Doug meanwhile has said goodbye to Holly for the last time.

In hospital Dan regains consciousness and it is determined that he has a broken collar bone only and is therefore out of danger. Frank makes his peace with Dan and vows never to question him again, and Dan responds tearfully that he'll make his own way in the world and will prove himself worthy. Holly meanwhile texts Doug to say simply that she can't have children, at which point he turns the car around and returns to Palm Beach.

With all of this going on Leo, Charlotte and Frank confront each other over the secret that they have harboured for over twenty years. And that is who is the true biological father of Dan. Leo believes it his him, following a one night stand with Charlotte, even though Frank has raised him. Ella overhearing the discussion comes to the rescue with the results of a DNA test that she and Dan had done some years ago proving that 99.95% that they are biological brother and sister, and unless Leo slept with Charlotte giving rise to Ella as well, then they must both be Frank's children. And so this matter too is resolved once and for all.

The next morning Eva awakes early, packs her things and tells Billy that she is leaving him, for good. She orders a cab, it arrives and off they drive with Billy chasing the cab on foot down the drive. He implores Eva to give him one last chance, apologises profusely for his actions, his attitude and the things that he has said and done. Reluctantly she agrees to come back on the basis that he promises that the next ten years will be their best ten years. As the sun sets on another day, the pizza oven has been fired up, cocktails are shaken and the party gets underway once again and everything is good in the world.

'Palm Beach' is a take it or leave it, something and nothing, style over substance kinda movie where the views, the vistas and the stunning scenery seen from the sun soaked deck of an opulent unspoilt abode perched above the ocean on one side and Pittwater on the other take priority over the plot. This is the story of a largely group of seniors (aged 60 years+) with their affluent, privileged lifestyle living off the royalties of their one hit wonder from yesteryear and their subsequent mostly successful careers, and their close knit mateship, all suffering from first world problems, getting under the skin of each other but willing to forgive and forget in a heartbeat because they, after all, are long term friends and all disputes can be settled with a good feed washed down with a chilled Chardonnay. Ward has assembled a fine cast of Antipodean movie royalty here (many of whom have worked numerous times with each other over the years) and you certainly get a sense that filming this movie must have been a hoot all the way through. But, I was left wanting more melodrama, more laughs, and more substance in what is described as a drama comedy, rather than just being kept engaged by a film that really has few standout moments other than the backdrop of Palm Beach and the environs itself.

'Palm Beach' warrants two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-