5/15/18. I only watched this because Blanchett is one of my favorite actresses. As in all her movies, she brings just the right intensity to the role. Here she is a former heroin addict trying to clean up her life, but all the people that probably made up her previous drugged-up world are still around and are not where she is trying to be. That makes it really hard for her to start over. And, for the whole movie she struggles with bad influences and good intentions. If you are Blanchett fan, then watch this.

I watched this on DVD and my finger was hovering over the Fast Forward button through most of the film. I managed to resist until the last twenty minutes and discovered that I understood about as much of it in fast forward as I did at normal speed -- nothing at all. It appears to be about some druggy people in a Chinatown area of Sydney, Australia. It's all very depressing, without really knowing why. It's a cliché, I know, but there are better ways to spend your time than watching this movie -- washing dishes or doing the ironing spring to mind.Despite having some top rate Australian talent in it (Sam Neill, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving) it starts nowhere and stays there right till the end. It didn't help that I didn't understand a lot of the dialogue and there were no subtitles to help me. This despite the fact that I lived in Sydney for a while, so it must be because a lot of the dialogue is muttered unintelligibly.I'd have ticked the spoiler box for this comment if I thought I'd understood what was happening enough to relay it to others. Sadly, I don't really know what happened to anybody at the end (bar one).My advice is to give it a miss. It's very frustrating, which is worse than boring.

Maybe identity theft affirms the irrelevance of who you think you are. All the world's a stage, and everyone is typecast. Apparently even someone with the reputed "range" of Cate Blanchett can't attract an audience by playing against (stereo)type, forced to measure up to acclaimed "classical" roles, like "An Ideal Husband" or "Elizabeth." Could even Brando "open" a movie? The characters in the film are stereotyped, as "risky." Even a great actress wouldn't be able to convince a loan officer to overlook a bad credit rating (even if only due to real identity theft), notwithstanding her ability to pretend to be someone else who can't pretend to be someone else. Is acting the last refuge of the identity thief? The film itself defied stereotyping, the ending revealing another genre, both good. The characters strive to rise above hard times. I wouldn't be surprised if compassion and despair could still coexist, like the Bible says, and here it still is news. Outstanding Neill.

Out of the quiet but ripe landscape of Australian Cinema comes a sleeper that film buffs of the character driven and powerfully acted in taste wait for. Artful, cinematic, and thoughtful; this film hums with moments of genius. Though not perfect, Little Fish is the story of people on the outside, living just underneath their dreams. Serious and rough around the edges this is not a film for those who are not comfortable with a darker film with a current of realism running through, but worth the slower moments that must fill any solid drama as it carries along. A perfect film for the academic and armchair cineaste, or someone looking for a bit of cinema with some harsh realism and thought out characters.