Review of Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

I confess to bias here, inasmuch as I'm a big fan of lead actress Danielle Cormack, but I loved this movie. It details the various interrelationships within a group of twentysomethings in Auckland and the key events in their lives that occur over a period of several months, some hilarious, some tragic. It's an exhilarating mixture of naturalistic insight and sheer absurdism, generally mundane events unfolding and being twisted into constantly tragicomic consequences. Wonderful ensemble performances (from a cast who will be very familiar to fans of TV's 'Xena: Warrior Princess,' a much less naturalistic drama but also the product of New Zealand!)give life to characters who are fully human in their self-absorption but utterly flawed understanding of their own lives. The brutal and tender moments of the film say far more about human relationships than a dozen feelgood Hollywood movies, and it's a great shame that this excellent piece of work didn't receive a major international release.

(By the way, the movie is available on tape in Canada and Region 2 DVD in Germany, including on Amazon's German site. Good luck in hunting it down).