Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This film is about a woman who tries to get her life back on track after 4 years of heroin addiction.I find the plot confusing, and the story poorly told. It is a drama, but lacks the drama. The pace of the story is very slow. Even after 90 minutes of the film, the only message I really perceive from the film is that Cate Blanchett's character is unable to get a loan despite repeated attempts. I am particularly annoyed by the excessive use of glares and halos around bright lights. It is not even a nice visual effect to start with anyway. Despite the stellar cast, I find this film unable to deliver what it could have been. I would not recommend it.

There are two national traditions of a sort that are driving excellence in film today. One focuses on the nature of the long form in terms of structure that connects emotionally and through folds intellectually as well. Its Spanish filmmakers, though distributed around the world.So far as modern acting is concerned, it is the relatively small nation of Australia who so dominates it is a wonder. It must come down to a couple — or even one — influential teacher at the national acting school there, NIDA.Here we have the latter without the former, such a shame. Oh, the filmmaker is intelligent enough, let's say of the Frears type and intensity. He's put together a sad tale of tentacles into a woman's soul, that once touched is forever vulnerable.But its essentially actor-centric. The actors fill their spaces marvelously, and create a wonderful froth of interaction. But it is merely froth. Inlike the handles the actors give us, the filmmaker gives us none. There is no shape to this as a film, no engagement as a story apart from what the actors give: parts.I saw this with "Bongwater," which was a minor success in that the film was broken in the same way the heroine was. That's true here as well, the difference being heroin instead of pot, and a much higher level of skill all around. Cate played much this same role in the recent "Notes on a Scandal." Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

In Sidney, Tracey Heart (Cate Blanchet) is a thirty-two years old manager of a video shop ex-addicted in heroin and clean for four years. She is trying to raise forty thousand dollars to buy a shop for computer games on the next door of the rental and become partner of her boss, but based on her negative records, the banks deny the loan. Tracey takes care of her junkie stepfather Lionel Dawson (Hugo Weaving), unsuccessfully trying to make him quit his heroin habit. When her former boy-friend Jonny (Dustin Nguyen) returns from Vancouver, Tracey's mother Janelle (Noni Hazlehurst) fears a fall of Tracey, while she blames Jonny for the car accident where her son Ray (Martin Henderson) lost one leg. When Ray and Jonny associate to Moss (Joel Tobeck), the assistant of the retired criminal boss Bradley 'The Jockey' Thompson (Sam Neill), in drug dealing, Tracey is convinced by Jonny to join them and raise the necessary money for her business along the weekend."Little Fish" is a heavy drama, based on losers, people addicted in drugs, showing how difficult the recovery is. The lead character is a woman without perspective in life that sees the chance of a good honest business, but with the doors closed due to her past, being therefore trapped in her past. Her mother suffers in double, since her former mate addicted her daughter and her son, who lost part of one leg with Jonny. The story is original, having the characters very well developed along the narrative and with great performances. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Sob o Efeito da Água" ("Under the Effect of the Water")

Maybe identity theft affirms the irrelevance of who you think you are. All the world's a stage, and everyone is typecast. Apparently even someone with the reputed "range" of Cate Blanchett can't attract an audience by playing against (stereo)type, forced to measure up to acclaimed "classical" roles, like "An Ideal Husband" or "Elizabeth." Could even Brando "open" a movie? The characters in the film are stereotyped, as "risky." Even a great actress wouldn't be able to convince a loan officer to overlook a bad credit rating (even if only due to real identity theft), notwithstanding her ability to pretend to be someone else who can't pretend to be someone else. Is acting the last refuge of the identity thief? The film itself defied stereotyping, the ending revealing another genre, both good. The characters strive to rise above hard times. I wouldn't be surprised if compassion and despair could still coexist, like the Bible says, and here it still is news. Outstanding Neill.