Directed by Fred Schepisi.
Even though Elizabeth Hudson (Charlotte Rampling) lies dying in her mansion in a wealthy Sydney suburb, she is still a force to be reckoned with. She has a couple of nurses, a housekeeper and a solicitor to tend to her every need and they indulge all her whims. In her morphine moments Elizabeth returns to a time 15 years previously when a huge storm hit the island she was staying on. She repeatedly finds herself on a beach, in the aftermath of the storm, surrounded by complete destruction.
Elizabeth believes that being of a certain class entitles you to die ‘whenever you damn well please’ and she has summoned her children to come to her bedside. Both her grown-up children have fled from the country but they return to their childhood home for the last chance to be with their mother.
Sir Basil (Geoffrey Rush) is an actor in London who has had moderate success on the stage and immense success in luring young women to share his boudoir. Every conversation is a performance and, although he is his mother’s favourite, there is not a great deal of affection between the two. Dorothy (Judy Davis) is a French princess by marriage (even though she has now divorced and penniless she retains the title). She still carries the resentment towards her mother that marked her departure and is really quite bitter towards life in general.
Based on a Patrick White novel, The Eye of the Storm is a savage exploration of family relationships. The children decide to put their mother in a nursing home to expedite her demise. All they want to do is to return to their chosen countries with their inheritance, but they are both forced to go on their own emotional journeys, seeking their own redemption.
Lezly Herbert
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