I remember Ana Kokkinos’s debut Loaded as a bold eye opener. I missed her dark, challenging sophomore film, The Book of Revelation. Blessed, based on (and far more appropriately titled than) the play Who’s Afraid of the Working Class, is a huge change in direction and, I venture, in directorial accomplishment. For it’s a momentous, spellbinding movie from the opening scene.
The first half of Blessed follows Melbourne teens off the rails: a youth living rough (and roughly); his sister shoplifting with a friend; a boy looking after his simple sister on the streets; a boy breaking into the house of a local old woman. The second half completes the jigsaw by shifting to the viewpoints of their mothers: a garment pieceworker distraught about her missing son; a gambling addict; a nurse in a failing marriage, a young woman pregnant again to another abusive partner. The script uses the technique of enmeshed stories slowly revealing truth (think 28 Grams and Babel), so difficult to get right, and it works flawlessly. All the younger actors and actresses are thoroughly believable and Kokkinos elicits great performances from Miranda Otto, Deborra-Lee Furness and William McInnes. Frances O’Connor’s acting has to be the best I’ve seen this year from an Australian. The film score is evocative and timely. Besides giving us a glimpse at the tragedy of homelessness, Blessed shines a light on a dozen other societal issues rarely tackled.
This is a brave, consummate, important film.