Sweet River

This movie went nowhere, massive anticlimax. Was extremely slow and had a lot of unnecessary scenes thrown in. Really disappointed since I had high hopes due to the acting.

Bit of a weird plot. Sort of goes all over the place and doesn't really explain things clearly. You have to work it out for yourself.... Also did John die in the end?? What happened to him? Did a kid hurt him or did he have a heart attack?? No real explanation there. Just a sorry from Hanna to John's wife Eleanor in the end. But that could be about losing Violet. And why was Max angry? So many questions.....

'Sweet River', like the best ghost stories, is suffused with grief and mystery. A woman moves to a small Australian riverfront sugarcane town to seek answers about the disappearance of her small son, only to find a community of grieving parents who, having lost their children to a number of tragedies, believe they are still with them. At the same time a mystery haunts the town, echoing across the canefields at night - particularly a field that stands as a memorial for the children lost and has never been harvested. 'Sweet River' is first and foremost a human drama about an outsider probing the secrets of a town - when the townsfolk don't want her to - so that she can find her son and finally allow him, and herself, to rest. The cane towers and shifts as both a backdrop and a character. It is foreboding and visceral - both the town's lifeblood and the keeper of its secrets. A river and a forest full of omens. Beautifully acted and photographed, this film weaves a tightly knotted plot that it unravels in expertly measured beats as midway, the ghost story hinted in its opening sequence begins to take hold while the frustrations begin to mount upon Hannah as she gets closer to the truth. Perhaps the resolution is just ever so slightly too neat (this is being very picky) and the emotional wrap-up a touch too swift to be as satisfying as the rest of the story demands. The opening sequence, like the exaggerated trailer, is also a little at odds with the tone of the rest of the film. Nevertheless, this is an accomplished, subtle, slow burn, adult ghost story that should have had the chance to find a bigger audience than it has. One for viewers looking for something along the lines of 'The Orphanage', 'The Others', 'February (The Balckcoat's Daughter)' and 'The Devil's Backbone' rather than J-Horror and 'Children of the Corn', as the trailer would have you expect.

It starts well, and it's promising, but you'll soon realise it's going nowhere. Heaps of 'almost-got-me-scared' scenes and a big failure to amalgamate the storyline cohesively. Could be a great movie (the idea is good though).

I'm Australian and I hate these locally produced movies. Why are Aussies always depicted as ugly, grubby, low IQ, toothless gammon who can't string a sentence together? They seem to be unable to speak without dropping the F word. Ugly people with horrible lazy accents. I've yet to meet these grotesque characters IRL yet our Australian film industry delights in portraying us as imbeciles. Ironic that these film types are some of the most snooty hoity toity luvvie snobs around. We have a beautiful country and yet you find the ugliest most depressing location possible. I'm sure the Aussie Tourism Board is thrilled with your portrayal of our country and it's citizens. Don't watch this pile of nightsoil unless you want to wallow in misery. Grow up Australian movie financers, we've moved on from Crocodile Dundee.

The writing of this film lets it down. It's like a car that keeps trying to get up the hill but never gets there. It feels like a first draft script that needed to get pushed to a higher level, which is a shame, because you can tell everyone did their best with what they had.

Living in the US you become accustomed to big budgets and have to occasionally venture into foreign language European (French and Dutch cinema) to realize that great acting and gripping stories abound throughout the world. Here is a superbly filmed Australian thriller, the natural settings when captured in their entirety add a fantastic sense of isolation, fear and entrapment concurrently. The acting was spot on and you felt Hanna's various struggles with loss (but distinct lack of closure), alcoholism and also the lack of belonging as an outsider. Particularly marked were her dual portrayals of a mother needing to do right the thing for her son at all costs and at the same time her vulnerability as a recently separated partner, recovering alcoholic and lone female in an adverse situation. My only criticism is the vivid existence in the cane field, where these consoling imaginations or a local phenomenon and whether the film was truly horror or thriller. Really worth the watch and a very realistic ending that tied up the loose ends and means I can actually get to sleep tonight - highly recommended and could easily have filled a 6 part TV series. Great Aussie movie.

We enjoyed this movie, dont normally like Aussie movies or shows as the acting is usually not great. This movie was clever, filmed beautifully, and had just enough strangeness to keep us watching. The ending was good the only thing confusing was the red light issue, I get the other village put some up as a memorial but why did the village of the families use them?