One Perfect Day

Synopsis:: Tommy Matisse (Dan Spielman) is a gifted musician whose abilities have earned him a position at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London. Unfortunately the formal structure doesn’t suit; he longs to play his own music in his way. Back home in Australia, Alysse (Leeanna Walseman), his soulmate and musical collaborator, misses Tommy more than she would care to admit. When Tommy’s sister Emma (Abbie Cornish) dies from a drug overdose, he flies back to mourn her loss and find out the truth about her death.

One Perfect Day is perfectly presentable. The director, Paul Currie, became the first Australian to experiment with a fully digitised print of the film, allowing for a wide range of choices in colour grading and effects. He has used this process to great effect, adding atmosphere to the film by choosing different palettes to represent different locations and mindsets. This attention to detail is also obvious in the sound design and the sound track. Just as Tommy experiences sound in a heightened fashion, so do we. Much effort has gone into inviting the viewer into the worlds of the characters.

I ended up seeing this film twice, mainly because there was something about it that didn’t quite jell. After a second viewing I realised what it was; suspension of disbelief. I didn’t believe that Tommy and Alysse’s relationship was as special as it was supposedly meant to be. I didn’t believe that Tommy would be so lacking in emotion after losing the two people whom he supposedly loved the most. I didn’t believe that Alysse had enough charisma or charm that the three main male characters in the film could be so hopelessly in love with her.

Basically, I don’t believe that Dan Spielman and Leeanna Walseman were able to pull it off. I hate to say this, because, they are both fine actors, but I really think they were miscast here. Tommy is supposedly twenty-two years of age. I don’t know how old Spielman is, but he looks more than that. I imagined what it would have been like if Abbie Cornish had played the role Alysse, and Nathan Phillips, who plays Trig, was in Tommy’s role. They looked like they were part of the scene, and in fact both gave excellent performances.

As I watched Kerry Armstrong breeze through her role as Emma and Tommy’s mother, I had to admire her skill as an actor. Considering she is on screen for no more than a few minutes, the strength of her performance was the emotional heart of the story. Currie made the dance parties scenes authentic by staging live events then shooting the action of the film around them. These scenes have an energy that would have been difficult to replicate with a more staged approach.

The intention behind One Perfect Day was to make a film that champions what is good about the rave culture, particularly considering that it usually receives bad press. In that respect, I could probably watch this film again. And hey, it’s Australian and it’s not a quirky comedy - that’s got to be good.

 

 

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