I just saw this as a new release on DVD. Usually I like Jane Campion. But this was way off. It was extremely hard to get through, and was in general just so strange. The acting was mediocre. If I was in a theater I would have walked out in the first half hour. The first 5 minutes seemed interesting especially the music, but as soon as the main character steals the boyfriends newly planted tree the picture quickly dies. Adding the severely psychotic sister to the movie just throws a massive curve ball to the movie. Yes Sweetie is somewhat key to the movie and it's titled after her, but showing 5-6 of her fits got to be too redundant.

This is a fantastic film. It uncovers the dark side of married life, the preservation of life and the stark contrast between people tied together by blood. Elements of this film are nightmarish and reminiscent of the work of David Lynch. Visuals are surreal and interesting. Campion successfully captures the emotions of the protagonist and the dislike she feels toward her sister, Dawn. You can sense the hate/love relationship the family feels toward Dawn. It's so well done that you start to dislike her also and she's seen as thorn. The most powerful scene in this film is at the end. Overall this film is one of Campion's most original and interesting pieces of work.

I can't believe I sat through this whole stupid flick. "Sweetie" takes a long, sober, and plaintive look at the dregs of a splintered Aussie family with two adult daughters one of which is a brittle, simple-minded fat woman, the title character (Lemon). An uneventful, plodding, and peculiar story and Campion brain fart, "Sweetie" offers little save peculiar heaped on peculiar ad nauseam. Terminally boring and not recommendable.

Quite a dark film that seems to lack the catharsis (or uplifting tones) of the later Campion's films. The film concentrates on psychological problems of Kay, strange, detached young women which, seemingly calm and shy, is able to shamelessly steal a just-engaged man from his fiancee. Kay's life with the boyfriend, however, turns out to be far from happy. What does she want? We do not know that until her younger sister Dawn, aka Sweetie, appears on the scene almost halfway through the film. Dawn has apparently been a spoiled baby in the family. The father even now speaks about her "talents", although he too must see that, in reality, she is a mentally handicapped person whose intellectual and emotional development has been arrested at the level of a 4-year old. Sometimes she is charming, sometimes threatening, but, most importantly, she is uninhibited and free (among other things, free to act on her whims). With the arrival of Dawn, Kay's great animosity towards her sister is immediately apparent. Instead of help and compassion of a "normal" older sister she only offers criticism and open hatred. Little by little we find what Kay wants: she wants to be Dawn. She wants to lose her repressions, she wants to be loved, admired and always forgiven, no matter what she does. Deep psychological analysis of abnormal relations between sisters reminds me of some Ingmar Bergman's works although "Sweetie" does not have the nordic broodiness.