Without spoiling it....let me just say that one of the main characters is so utterly annoying and detestable that I couldn't even watch the movie. I had to fast-forward a couple times. Just a lousy movie. One character is annoying and utterly unwatchable. I also got sick of watching the worrying parents; usually I like a movie like this....but this one just stunk. Boring too. I know this review might sound simplistic or leave you wondering....all I can say is I usually like a movie about parents searching for their kid and all that drama. But not this time. This one was awful. Oh....the 'dream scenes'....everyone in this movie sees 'visions' of the missing girl, dancing in the clouds and crap. Boring. And both parents see these visions and faint....it just stunk.

I'd just watched the spoof horror Grabbers, which has an excellent comic performance by a gorgeous actress named ... Ruth Bradley.So I checked out her other stuff, found this, and the result was ... the polar opposite. Except this performance is excellent too. I wonder why she hasn't appeared in more movies.Not as distressing a story as I expected, but there were powerful scenes. The father's panic attack feels real. And of course the murder scene is brutal, but rounded off with the touching sight of the lights going down on the dancer.There are some weaknesses. I would have preferred if we got more of the killer's thoughts - although the disconnect in her character is clear from the performance, she clearly had the sensitivity to give some deeper reflections on death.

When I first saw this film – a true story – which features the graphic depiction of the murder of 15-year old Rachel Elizabeth Barber, I wondered how her parents could sit through it.However, in an interview, Rachel's mother, Elizabeth Barber, explained that she and her husband, "…didn't want people to shy away from what murder really is".This is one of the most harrowing movies you are likely to see.Rachel, played by Kate Bell, disappears after attending a dance class. The story follows her parents, Elizabeth and Mike Barber (Miranda Otto and Guy Pearce) as they attempt to find her, and convince the police that she hasn't simply run away. The film then cuts to the woman who has actually murdered their daughter, Caroline Reed Robertson, played in searing style by Ruth Bradley. Caroline came to know the family as a neighbour years before; a chance encounter that changed their lives.Combined with all the little details of family life, and the reactions of the younger children, Miranda Otto and Guy Pierce as the mother and father are so real that this film is often painful to watch.Sam Neil who plays Caroline's father, David Reid, has real presence on the screen, he is one of those actors who don't have to do much to steal a scene: the less he does the better he is. He projects a sense of exasperation and anxiety as Caroline's father.Ruth Bradley as Caroline is mesmerising. Overweight and hating her life and her body, she is nonetheless totally fixated on herself to the exclusion of just about all else. We see the mounting jealousy she feels for the seemingly perfect Rachel until she eventually murders her and tries to assume her identity. This film shows how the cocoon of safety, support and insularity embodied in normal family life can be shattered so easily by a malevolent, outside force.Every aspect of first-time director Simone North's film is brilliantly handled. From the incisive script to the interesting Melbourne locations, the film demonstrates the level of maturity that Australian films have attained today.The crime happened in 1999, and a postscript to the film is the fact that Caroline Reid Robertson is now eligible for parole. After seeing this movie and news reports about the case, you have to wonder whether the Victorian Parole Board is capable of getting this right; their track record in recent times has been abysmal with eleven murders committed by parolees in less than three years – one can only hope.

It's based on real events from the 1990s in Melbourne and is quite well done. Ruth Bradley is Caroline, a former baby sitter for a middle-class couple, Guy Pearce and Miranda Otto. The eldest of the couple's children is Rachel, played by Kate Bell. Rachel is only in her mid-teens but has everything a girl requires -- beauty, curiosity, love, and talent. One can only gasp at her impeccable entre chats.Ruth Bradley couldn't have been a better choice for the role of the half-mad and insanely envious Caroline, who murders Rachel and buries her body on a farm. Bradley isn't ugly. The movie isn't that simple minded. But her features are plain, as they are with most of us, and there is only the hint of the demonic in her eyes. Of course she's made up to look more ordinary than she is, what with her stringy hair and pale face. She's a competent actress as well.And her figure is that of a walking survival system. She's chubby all over, which would help her during a famine, and her breasts are over-sized and pendulous. She could reproduce to beat the band. Totally unattractive in today's world of models, but the dream of a Victorian gentleman or a Neanderthal, a Venus of Willendorf.Psychologically, however, she's full of problems, aside from the distress over cosmetic issues. She's sloppy, an epileptic, and suffers from bouts of depression. And there are moments when she is as brutal as a five-year-old child. It's a complex portrait. The murder is brutal and graphic. She strangles the gorgeous young Rachel and mutilates the body but there's an element of helplessness about her most heinous acts.Pearce and Otto, as Rachel's parents, don't have very much to do but the viewer is at least spared an excess of hysteria as they persistently prod the police to investigate what they believe is Rachel's disappearance and the cops think is a simple case of a runaway.Sam Neill is Caroline's estranged and vitiated father who loves his crazy daughter but is depressed and at his wit's end. When he's visited by the police and asked if his daughter might have had something to do with Rachel's disappearance, he pauses and replies, "In light of what you've just said, I have to say I'm deeply concerned." Neill's performance is a gem. His forte is thoughtfulness rather than strength and the role plays directly into his talents.Women like Caroline who are overdeveloped and unattractive according to the norms established by Vogue and Cosmopolitan models have reason for their unhappiness. From an evolutionary point of view, what females have traditionally had to offer is beauty, youth, and fecundity. Unattractive men can compensate by being powerful or rich. For millions of years, females have had to be selective about their mating. They're born with all the eggs they're ever going to have, about three hundred, and every pregnancy represents an enormous investment. The best mate is one who is both potent and protective. A woman who is born without the most desirable attributes has good reason to be depressed, though, as if in compensation, there are always males available who are not handsome, powerful, or rich. Caroline's difficulties included not only an elephantine figure but a lack of patience.It's not without weaknesses: sluggish in parts, and a solution too quickly arrived at. We never get to see much development in Rachel's character. In any case, this is a splendidly executed film, not just by the performers but by the photographer and the writer/director, Simone North. A lot of talent on display here. Good on them.