Main Cast: Guy Pearce, Helena Bonham Carter, Frank Gallacher, Lindley Joyner, Brooke Harman
Release Year: 2002
Country: AU
Run Time: 101 minutes
Plot
Young adolescent Sam Franks (Lindley Joyner) spends his summers away from school with his physician father (Peter Curtin), whose schedule barely allows for quality father-son time. Therefore, Sam idles away most of his time with neighbor Maurie Lewis (Frank Gallacher) and Maurie's handicapped daughter Silvy (Brooke Harman), who also happens to be Sam's best friend. One night following a dance, Sam and Silvy kiss for the first time, and go down to the nearby river. As the two are lazily floating in the river and watching the night sky, Silvy disappears underwater and her body is never found. Several years afterwards, an adult Sam (Guy Pearce) -- who has gone on to become a psychiatry instructor -- journeys back to the same town for the funeral of his recently deceased father. While en route, Sam encounters Ruby (Helena Bonham Carter), a mysterious young woman he is forced to rescue from the same river that Silvy had disappeared in. After bringing Ruby to his father's house to calm her down after the incident, Sam begins to feel a strangely familiar comfortableness with her and the two begin to visit all of Sam's and Silvy's old stomping grounds. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
Review
A glacially-paced film about a man who's lost touch with his emotions after an extremely traumatic childhood experience, Till Human Voices Wake Us wastes its talented stars Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter on material that they can do little with. Pearce is of course limited in his role as the emotionless doctor (Dr. Sam Franks) who saves Carter from drowning in a river, while Carter is stuck with a sort of tree nymph type of character (Ruby), who traipses through the forest like a careless child and must appear semi-feral to play off of Franks' rigidity. The flashbacks to Franks' childhood which feature Brooke Harman and Lindley Joyner are livelier and the actors have more chemistry. But as the plot in present tense moves slowly to its conclusion, Franks is the last to figure out the big surprise that most of the audience was aware of twenty minutes earlier. Written and directed by successful screenwriter Michael Petroni (who penned The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys), Till Human Voices Wake Us is a less-than-inspired directorial debut. ~ Adam Bregman, All Movie Guide
