Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx I was tremendously moved by this movie from Australia, and the audience at the London Film Festival were very appreciative of director Ana Kokkinos who attended to introduce the film and for a Q&A. Blessed is based on an Australian play called "Who's afraid of the working class" which was produced in 1999. So the project to make it cinematic has taken the best part of 10 years for Ana Kokkinos. Ana's focus in the film was towards the relationships between mothers and their children (or blessings), and stripped out anything from the play that didn't fit in that agenda.The film is simply that, an examination of the bond between mother and child, with a strong backdrop of contemporary Melbourne. I think it was a challenge to try and strip the theatricality out, but that seems to have been pulled off really well (both with the structure of the film which is very cinematic and the focus on the close-up of the human face, which is a cornerstone of cinema). There are around five different stories here, which have some degree of connectivity, which avoids the choppiness you can get in a typical portmanteau film. Mostly we are seeing children on the streets of Melbourne, instead of in school, in some degree of confrontation or peril. There is a structure so that you can see the same story twice, once from the children's side and once from the adult's side.I think the cast is cracking. Frances O'Connor as Rhonda if electric in this movie, like a force of nature, a flaming creature. She does some terrible things, they are sins of omission more than anything else (though they are still heinous). There is a scene in this movie where heavily pregnant Rhonda dances in a nightclub after a huge incident, whilst her social worker looks on in awe and disbelief. That's the attitude of the audience mirrored. Rhonda's alive with sexuality and agony throughout the whole movie, so apart from the way most people live in their ultra-sanitised lives where they've tried to remove everything animal. The social worker is a proxy for the middle class audience member, who is university educated and has erased their pagan side.The level of confrontation in the movie is astonishing to anyone (like myself) who lives in a confrontation-phobic milieu. A police detective in a darkened interview room, full of frustration and rage, tells two truant girls how miserable they are and stupid, and how they've got no talent going for them and that they know nothing, and will never amount to anything.Cezary Skubiszewik music is absolutely haunting, it's played over the opening scenes where we see all the children asleep in their beds. You know right then that you're in for a very special movie. It's a raging torrent of love and hatred and pure emotion that leaves you bewildered and touched by the dilemmas and hideous positions that the characters find themselves in.I don't have any trouble in saying that this is the finest film I saw in a programme of at least 25 films, including the eventual winner of the festival, Jacques Audiard's Un prophète.

Tim Johnson We just returned from yet another brilliant and moving Australian film; it is the third of a trilogy of tough films that we have recently attended. Do not expect anything remotely comparable to something from Hollywood. As I have commented before, these films could not be made in Hollywood; the Americans could not stand the realism, the rawness or the lack of a cutesy ending. We were particularly struck by the realness of all that we saw; I do not know people living on the edge to the extent depicted in the film but I have encountered people such those on the screen so I believe that I can vouch for the accuracy of the portrayals. The film is divided between mothers and their kids. The first half of the movie examines the kids and the kind of life they are forging on their own, generally, because the bonds of motherly love have been broken irreparably in some cases and temporarily in others. In all cases the journey for the viewer is a road full of potholes. The seven children represent different methods of survival and the mothers, it could be argued, also represent different methods of survival but at an adult level. Men play a purely secondary role, if their presence could be called a role at all. To me the males represented the alpha and omega of maleness: at one time protector, at another life-slayer. However, the film first and foremost is about females and the roles they form to survive as best they can in a disturbing, malevolent world.

brimon28 This ageing reviewer usually flies straight into print after seeing a film, but Blessed provoked thought and discussion. Kokkinos has made a reverential tribute to Akira Kurosawa, who half-a-century ago made Rashomon. Maybe Kurosawa was not the first to use the dramatic overlays and interlinks of groups of people to puzzle and then mystify the audience. But he surely perfected it, and Kokkinos applies the technique to effect. Some might see a resemblance to the various versions of La Ronde, and we do expect to see the characters meet towards the finish. The characters are admirably rendered by a great cast, and I think the casting agent deserves credit for persuading such top performers to appear in such a difficult play. It is difficult to pick out any one as outstanding, but Otto's scream was electrifying. Does anyone remember the screams in Rashomon?

BOUF Anna Kokkinos extracts excellent performances from her actors - particularly the young ones. Even actors like Deborah Lee-Furness and Miranda Otto, whom I usually find dull, shine in this heavy-handed plodder with a multi-strand plot about three dysfunctional families. There are a few admirable moments, when there is little or no dialogue - Miranda Otto dancing; and a scene in which she and William McInnes meet at a bar - beautifully played. But when characters say things like ' You never touch me' (really!) ..what is there for the audience to discover? There is also a scene in which an elderly woman faces a young housebreaker - it absolutely creaks with clichéd sub-Pinter ponderousness, as does much of this worthy portrait of working-class suffering, produced by the comfortable bourgeoisie. However the most pernicious moral aspect of this piece is that, of the three mothers who face possible tragedy, it is the 'bad' mother who cops it. Apparently the catering during the production of this movie was excellent, so you can rest assured that no-one involved in its making actually suffered.