User Reviews

This film left a lasting impression on me from when I saw it aged about 15. Upon many years of reflection I suspect that the two female leads are two opposed elements of the writer's psyche. One, the super-ego and the other the id. The super-ego is fraught with a sense of place in the world, and trying to make the best of the values it finds directly around it, and the id is a tangle of senses and memories, caught up in the deepest recesses of childhood. That's what I found most striking about this film. It's so ego-less. That is what gives it it's fractured, purposeless other-worldly quality. I did not 'enjoy' this film. It is not a fun film. I also remember the light. What amazing glaring, evil sunlight. I must get a copy and watch it again, to see if it's like I remember it. I thought that the acting, editing, dialogue and general sense of timing were totally bewitching. For a week after watching this film I still felt as though I had returned home from a strange, alien world. I had been immersed, albeit temporarily in an extraordinary place, complete and tactile. Amazing.

Peculiar Kay steals her co-worker's boyfriend Louis which makes her a pariah at her bank. He plants a tree for their anniversary after 13 months and she secretly rips it out of the ground. One night, Kay's unstable sister Sweetie shows up to stay and brings along the very strange Bob. She has not been taking her medication and starts spiralling downwards.

Director Jane Campion creates these damaged people. Their dysfunction holds some interest but they aren't compelling characters. It's a lot oddities without the charisma to be compelling. The lead Colston hasn't done much acting after this movie. I can't feel for these characters and it's hard to root for any of them.

"Sweetie" (Australian, 1989): Jane Campion is one of my favorite "newer" film makers. (See "An Angel at my Table" if you like this one!) She has a unique vision on life, and most every aspect of the film is hers - from concept and writing to the directing. Although the production values have a low-budget look, the stories are so good, and so powerful, you quickly overlook this weakness. "Sweetie" is the story of Kay, a highly neurotic young woman who is totally uncomfortable with the "everyday" world. Because of a tea leaf reading, she makes decisions that will greatly affect hers and others lives. Yep, she seems close to crazy. THEN her sister arrives - Sweetie, with a mystery man. Nope, things weren't crazy before… but NOW they are. They couldn't get crazier now. Then their parents come into the picture.

When it starts off with the eccentric and shy Kay (Karen Colston) falling in love with the handsome Louis (Tom Lycos), Jane Campion's 1988 film SWEETIE promises a romantic comedy. When Kay's mentally ill sister Dawn (Genevieve Lemon) drops in, the film develops in a very different direction. Some element of comedy, very black humour, remains but overall the film is a family tragedy.

The tragedy is that this disturbed young woman nicknamed "Sweetie" is simultaneously a victim of her own illness and an unwilling aggressor against her family, who feign love and acceptance but clearly would like to do without her. The strongest aspect of the film is Lemon's performance, one of the best screen portrayals of mental illness since Bergman's IN A GLASS DARKLY. Something I appreciate more on repeat viewing is that the background to this family drama is left ambiguous. That said, I would not list "Sweetie" among my favourite films: it is overall well-made and memorable but not quite at the level of effusive praise.

Based solely on a tea leaf reading, superstitious and introspective Kay believes she and Louis are destined to fall in love with each other, he who she is able to convince of the same despite he just having gotten engaged to her co-worker, Cheryl. That destiny may change with the fortunes of what she sees as the next symbol of their relationship, a somewhat sickly elder tree Louis plants in their garden for their one year anniversary.

This is Jane Campion's first feature, and her best. Some might point to "Angel at my Table", but I personally thought that film was terrible. "Sweetie" is funny, and has an interesting sense about it. One might even call it quirky, but it never quite goes full-quirky, keeping one foot firmly in the real world. It is sort of like Wes Anderson lite, and one has to wonder if he didn't draw some influence from Campion.

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.

Karen Colston isn't doing too well at the moment. It's not just that she's terrified of trees and that she and her husband haven't had sex in..... well, a long time, long enough for his attentions, if not actions to wander....but her marginal sister, Geneviève Lemon, has taken up residence by breaking a window. Meanwhile, her parents are bemused by both of them.

Jane Campion has made a career out of movies about the marginal people who are just getting by, marginalized by the robust, beefy standards of Australia, people who don't understand them. Or perhaps they are not well in the head, or some combination of the two, needing insight in a culture that is more concerned with doing than introspection. An air of depression hangs over this movie, and I think that's the motivation: Miss Colston and Miss Lemon are depressed (Miss Lemon seems more manic-depressive) and no one seems to know this, even them. Lacking this insight, they find themselves thinking they're doing something wrong, since other people seem perfectly happy, and drive themselves deeper into that depression, without the consolation of self-awareness and a strong morality.

It's a fine portrait. As a depressive myself, though, I find the movie sad and dispirited.

This is one of the most hilarious movies I have ever seen that deals with such dark issues. It focuses on two sisters, Dawn a.k.a. " Sweetie" and Kay, who both (as we see it) struggle with their psychological health. Kay seems somewhat conscious of, but at the same time unwilling to express her psychological problems. This seems to manifest itself in her sexual problems with Louis. Dawn, on the other hand, seems completely oblivious to the fact that she has problems, and seems to live her life freely and spontaneously. We see the interaction between these characters as a struggle between stifling repression and an out-of-control, externally-destructive unleashing of feelings. The film seems to reconcile these aspects until we reach some sort of balance at the end.

While the film deals with these serious subjects, it is in no way (as far as I'm concerned) a depressing movie. It's filled with comedy, which has been called "black comedy", but in my view the comedy itself doesn't have any heavy, negative under tones. The actress who plays Sweetie is an established comedian and her comedic acting is hilarious and convincing. Sweetie freely expresses herself, in ways that might seem childish to some, but are secretly ways we might like to act if it were accepted. Her character tells us that it's possibly to be so free and unfettered and survive, up to a point.

I love the scene where Sweetie's new, wasted "talent manager" boyfriend is taken to a cafe, by Sweetie's father, in order to get rid of him. At the table Sweetie's father begins to talk about how Sweetie "was such a talented little girl". The boyfriend then spontaneously falls asleep (he has some kind of sleeping sickness). At this point the father tries to remove the boyfriend's coat, which is actually Louis's (Kay's husband), and which they have been trying to get him out of for a long time. The boyfriend, still asleep, then falls to the floor dragging the contents of the table top with him, and ends splayed out on the floor in a baroque mess.

There are numerous comedic scenes like the one above, that weave in and out of the movies' main issues (i.e. control of oneself). Dawn's boyfriend, like Dawn (Sweetie), lacks control over his expression, in this case his actual, physical body.

To add to these delights, the movie is beautifully, artfully photographed and the sets are also artistically satisfying. The soundtrack includes beautiful African gospel. All-in-all, if you're receptive to emotions and understanding them, this will probably be one of the best movies you'll ever see.

I just saw this as a new release on DVD. Usually I like Jane Campion. But this was way off. It was extremely hard to get through, and was in general just so strange. The acting was mediocre. If I was in a theater I would have walked out in the first half hour. The first 5 minutes seemed interesting especially the music, but as soon as the main character steals the boyfriends newly planted tree the picture quickly dies. Adding the severely psychotic sister to the movie just throws a massive curve ball to the movie. Yes Sweetie is somewhat key to the movie and it's titled after her, but showing 5-6 of her fits got to be too redundant.

Australian filmmaker Jane Campion's unorthodox daydream of family ties will likely infuriate more people than it pleases, defeating expectations as easily as it defies casual analysis. Describing it in any detail would only spoil the joy of discovery, for both the story and the idiosyncratic style of the film itself, which turns an already cockeyed domestic melodrama (introducing the oddball in-laws of an estranged young couple) into a sometimes grotesque but strangely compassionate portrait of sad, eccentric people living on the fringes of Down Under society.

Campion challenges the viewer's perception of what is or isn't real, using a portentous, artfully composed visual scheme, emphasizing in every shot her eye for geometry and deadpan comic detail. And then, mid-way through the story, along comes Sweetie herself to upset all the symmetry. Her younger sister calls her "a dark force"; her father treats her (affectionately) as the child she'll always be to him; and her mother, out of exasperation, simply walks away from all the subsequent turmoil. In a nutshell, Sweetie is the loose cannon in every family closet, and as played by newcomer Geneviève Lemon she's one of the more obscene and compelling characters ever to crash a movie scenario. Her story is, by turns, tender, pathetic, amusing, ominous, totally unique, and just plain weird.

My Review- Sweetie Streaming on Amazon Prime My Rating. 7/10 I'm so grateful when I watch a movie on a friends recommendation that I've not seen before .

Especially when it's the first feature film of a famous Academy award winning Director like Jane Campion.

I always assumed that Jane Campion's first feature movie was the superb 1990 movie An Angel at My Table about the great New Zealand fiction Janet Frame.

Sweetie was made the year before An Angel at My Table in 1989 and certainly wasn't the box office hit that Angel was but it has Jane Campion's style and flair for highlighting the more bizarre and dysfunctional nature of human behaviour .

The two talented stars of Sweetie went on to feature as regulars in other Jane Campion Productions Genevieve Lemon who is exceptional in her portrayal of the dysfunctional attention seeking Dawn "Sweetie " also later featured in The Piano, The Power of the Dog 2022 and Top of the Lake 2017 series .

Karen Colston who plays her dour introvert sister Kay reunited with Genevieve Lemon in The Piano 1993 and Top of the Lake in 2017.

Sweetie is a touching and funny original story idea from Jane Campion who co-wrote the screenplay with Gerard Lee they also co wrote 13 episodes of the great 2013 -2017 television series Top of the Lake .

Set in Sydney suburbia Dawn affectionately known as Sweetie ( Genevieve Lemon) is the high maintenance on the spectrum or possibly bi polar sister of Kay (Karen Colston) who is the polar opposite of Sweetie. Kay is a glum superstitious young woman who's aloofness and social discomfort alienates her from her workmates.

Kay discovers her boyfriend Louis through a set of very unusual circumstances and they move in together but their love nest is invaded by a cuckoo and her seedy drug addled boyfriend Bob who Sweetie hopes is the talent scout manager that will launch her to stardom.

Sweetie is more than high maintenance she's to hot to handle and is totally self obsessed but she is very very funny and the apple of her father Gordon's eye. As usual any mentally challenged family members behaviour must affect the rest of the household and Sweeties parents are no exception.

The girls parents Gordon and Flo played by Jon Darling and Dorothy Barry's marriage is in crisis and Flo begins her own search to find her identity again.

Trees are a constant and pivotal reference in Sweetie and a clever analogy I think to Family Trees which also as Kay remarks have dead or sick branches shake any family tree and you'll get hit by a few rotten apples.

With a budget for her first movie of just one million dollars I agree with one reviewer who said Campion directs "Sweetie" as if it's the only film she would ever get a chance to make. From musical numbers to time-lapse photography of roots growing, she throws everything she has at us.

Thankfully it was not Jane Campion's only film and now her budgets for movies like her Academy Award winning film The Power of the Dog range from $35-$39 million.

Sweetie was a directorial tour de force that offered the promise of great things to come, a promise that Jane Campion more than accomplished thanks Tanya for recommending this movie.

I read that Sweetie was one of fifty Australian films selected for preservation as part of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Kodak / Atlab Cinema Collection Restoration Project which explains why it's in such great condition.

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.

Quite a dark film that seems to lack the catharsis (or uplifting tones) of the later Campion's films. The film concentrates on psychological problems of Kay, strange, detached young women which, seemingly calm and shy, is able to shamelessly steal a just-engaged man from his fiancee. Kay's life with the boyfriend, however, turns out to be far from happy. What does she want? We do not know that until her younger sister Dawn, aka Sweetie, appears on the scene almost halfway through the film. Dawn has apparently been a spoiled baby in the family. The father even now speaks about her "talents", although he too must see that, in reality, she is a mentally handicapped person whose intellectual and emotional development has been arrested at the level of a 4-year old. Sometimes she is charming, sometimes threatening, but, most importantly, she is uninhibited and free (among other things, free to act on her whims). With the arrival of Dawn, Kay's great animosity towards her sister is immediately apparent. Instead of help and compassion of a "normal" older sister she only offers criticism and open hatred. Little by little we find what Kay wants: she wants to be Dawn. She wants to lose her repressions, she wants to be loved, admired and always forgiven, no matter what she does. Deep psychological analysis of abnormal relations between sisters reminds me of some Ingmar Bergman's works although "Sweetie" does not have the nordic broodiness.

an original vision..consistently followed through.

The humour is what sets this film apart (as well as lush and particular style of framing/lighting) that makes the film world of "Sweetie" feel idiosyncratic, nightmarish and lurid.

Whether or not it's your cup of tea, (and a pastel pink cup full of sacharine and strichnine is not everybody's cup of tea) it has to be applauded on a critical level.

Along with contemporary Australian classics "The Night The Prowler" "Strictly Ballroom" "Starstruck" and "The Cars that Ate Paris" this film was the innovator of what later became a formula for Australian funding models vis a vis...quirky.

But the early work was wonderfully dark and had a knowing sense of camp -- where later work failed.

An unbeatable gem for those with discerning film taste. This film is very thoughtful and heartbreaking with unique characters you don't forget. It's not for those wanting Hollywood sugar and lies or simple distraction as it's slow yet brave and sure. Visually it is rather astounding, especially for a first feature film. It's inspirational to many filmmakers that I know. Every time I watch it I am in awe of the composition. As for the writing, it's also incredible. There are some moments that never leave your head once you take them in, and a perfect pacing of action and air. The dream sequences stand out as a bit odd, but they are at least attempting to do something different and it was after all still the eighties so it's forgivable. Perfect ending too.

was ****ed up. This film was one of the strangest I've seen. Once again I admire Campion's courage to take art in a variety of directions. I was amazed by this film for no other reason than it's complete lack of boundaries. It was a fun ride!

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.

Jane Campion was considered to be one of New Zealand's Finest Directors. I watched her film, The Piano. This film focuses on the hazardous relationship between the buttoned-down, superstitious Kay and her rampaging, devil-may-care sister, Sweetie-and their family's profoundly rotten roots. The film was good, a perfect debut for this female director. I love how this film was colorful photography and captivating, idiosyncratic characters; the rugged and tender Sweetie heralded the emergence of this gifted director and a renaissance of Australian cinema, which would take the film world by storm in the nineties.

I can't believe I sat through this whole stupid flick. "Sweetie" takes a long, sober, and plaintive look at the dregs of a splintered Aussie family with two adult daughters one of which is a brittle, simple-minded fat woman, the title character (Lemon). An uneventful, plodding, and peculiar story and Campion brain fart, "Sweetie" offers little save peculiar heaped on peculiar ad nauseam. Terminally boring and not recommendable.

Jane Campion's first feature is an accomplished and offbeat movie about a dysfunctional family. Like, a really dysfunctional family. Like, after this movie was over I thought back on it and was disturbed by how dysfunctional this family was. There's a brief scene that implies father/daughter incest that is never referred to again by the movie or any of the characters in it, and that one short scene colored my entire reading of everything else going on.

The thing is, it's easy to overlook how disturbed we should be while watching the movie because so much of it is so funny, like a more humorously perverse version of a Mike Leigh film. There are times when the antics of Sweetie, the impetuous and childish daughter who serves as a sort of sun around which all the other members of this dysfunctional family orbit, seem silly and charming and kooky. But then there are other moments when they seem just sad at best, and downright insane at worst. And then there's that ending, that incredibly disturbing ending that pulls the rug right out from under us and leaves us shaken.

Grade: A.

If you are looking forward to the hopeless long long effort to convince a naked obese rude woman to climb down from a tree, you're in luck! Otherwise, sorry - you've lucked out. This is awful.

I just thought that I may not have sufficiently warned others of this Jane Campion film, so I returned to my review from years ago. The movie dsoes not make clear its loathing of the detestable central figure - that is perhaps the principal problem of the film.

Think of the person you've known who has most revelled in being an undeserved "victim" figure in a plea for pity - and the one who has tried most to hurt your feelings - combine them and then spend hours with him/her - and you have this movie.