How sad is this?

Fresh and Exciting

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Wow... I'm truly stunned at how abysmal this movie really is. Jane Campion tortures both her characters and the audience in this excruciatingly bad black comedy/drama about a - to say the least - dysfunctional family. Comes off as a pretentious film school final project that reeks like a rancid cross-contamination between David Lynch and John Waters. Seemingly random, unengaging and disjointed things just occur (either deadeningly slow or at the tone of loud shouting) in a sordid little universe populated by either repellent loonies or lame wimps that I only wish to disappear from the screen as quickly as possible. No nuances, no character development, no humor to be found anywhere. In bits, I detect fine cinematography, but even there, it's mostly shot in a way that casts long shadows over the scenes. You'd have to be psychic to spot that this director was to make the masterpiece "The Piano" some years to follow. One of the easiest bottom scores of 1/10 I've ever handed out.

Well... it's tough to decide between this and "Holy Smoke," but on balance, the sheer emotional pull of "Sweetie" breaks the tie. Restrained and never reaching for obvious sympathy, not interested in scoring easy points with viewers and featuring a truly extraordinary central performance, "Sweetie" is essential viewing for the serious film-goer.Fast-forward through the feminist empowerment bits which feature tree roots growing through concrete. This foreshadowing of the impossibly artsy-pretentious Campion of "In the Cut" will leave you wanting to throw the remote at your television set.Stick with this one. The final image will linger and hold you for a long while.

This film is one of the best films ever written and shot about the effects of mental illness on the psycho-dynamics of a family. Shot with a strongly claustrophobic sense of misé-en-scene, the extended family of Louis, Mom, Dad, Kay and Sweetie always crowd and clutter the frame, unable to extricate themselves physically and emotionally from one another. Geneviève Lemon's performance of a mentally ill young women (Sweetie/Dawn) sends chills up the spine of anyone who has worked with those who suffer like this. Although it does contain some nudity and slight sexual content, the dramatic push of the film as a whole makes this an extremely moving film even for teenagers, especially for families who are coping with mental illness. Campion's writing and above all her directing soars in this profound and compelling film.

Director Jane Campion once said in an interview that while she was writing "The Piano" she thought that before she made such an adult film like that she would make a smaller and more personal film. So "Sweetie" is her most personal film and its about two sisters. The film starts out about Kay (Karen Colston) who is a shy and somewhat dysfunctional woman who has her tea leaves read and is told to look for signs of love and see's them in her friends fiance'. Somehow she manages to convince him to leave his fiance' and become her boyfriend. Later in the film as the two live together (But no sex!) Kays sister Dawn (Genevieve Lemon) drops in and creates all sorts of havoc. Dawn (AKA Sweetie) is also dysfunctional but mentally ill. Shifts in moods and very erratic behavior dominate the last quarter of the film and its here that we can somewhat see that one of the reasons Kay doesn't get along with Dawn is because she is such a free wheeler and Kay is not. Kay is jealous of this quality that Dawn possesses. The film is very offbeat but also uneven. Kays relationship with her boyfriend is curious. She goes to all the trouble of stealing someone else's boyfriend and when she gets him she is reluctant to be intimate. I wish their could have been more scenes of Kay and Dawn together in a more coherent fashion but mostly its scenes of Kay reacting in frustration at her sisters antics. I did like the way the film ended. The ending seems to establish the overall drive of the film and its leaves a dramatic mark on the story. Film is interesting to watch due to the fact that it was made a few years before "The Piano" so while die hard Campion fans will enjoy this more, the rest of you will have to depend on your open mind.