Celeste – Review

Directed by: Ben Hackworth

Runtime: 105 minutes

Opening up the Brisbane International Film Festival this year, Celeste kicks off the year’s proceedings with an undeniably Queensland flavour. Helmed by Brisbane-born director Ben Hackworth, the film follows Celeste (Radha Mitchell), a famed forty-something opera singer, as she prepares to make a comeback after a decade out of the limelight. Having pushed everyone away after the death of her husband ten years ago, Celeste uses the occasion to attempt reconciliation with her estranged step-son Jack (Thomas Cocquerel). While Jack has mixed feelings towards Celeste, he also finds himself needing a place to lay low after owing money to the wrong people. Their resulting reconnection brings a host of longstanding issues bubbling to the surface. As the highly-anticipated comeback approaches at breakneck speed, Jack searches within himself for tools to navigate a complex reconciliation with an increasingly unstable Celeste.

Ben Hackworth does a marvellous job capturing far north Queensland on film, with its tropical rainforest scenery providing some serenity to the otherwise constricting emotional elements of the film. Shot on location at Paronella Park, the site of an inspired castle estate that looks like it grew in with the rest of the rainforest flora, the film finds a perfect staging ground for its slow-paced familial melodrama. Hackworth employs some interesting composition choices, keeping shots dynamic and tastefully off-kilter to contrast and amplify the turmoil of the characters’ emotions throughout.

Rhada Mitchell’s Celeste makes for a compelling character, a victim of circumstance whose graceful retreat from the limelight has long since morphed into a prison comprised of her own past successes and traumas. While she’s not a likeable character by any stretch, she’s not meant to be—we simply need to understand her situation and how it comes through in her behaviour, and Mitchell shines in her ability to convey an array of complex emotions in a way that is both terrifying and believable.

While this could have been the foundation of a gripping character drama, the potential is largely squandered by the characterisation of Celeste’s step-son Jack, who functions as the lynchpin of her story. Thomas Cocquerel is not terrible in the role, but Jack is the kind of character I’ve come to dislike in Australian cinema—a young hot-headed tradie oozing with sexual charisma but with very little going for him in the way of redeemable qualities. There is a certain synergy to the way these two unlikeable characters come together—some of the film’s most impactful moments blossom from the deep well of toxicity that is Celeste and Jack’s relationship—but the resolution attempts to trade in on our sympathy for the Jack character, and I found myself having none to give.

The emotional depth of the story also suffers from its reliance on intermittent vignettes of past traumas, sublime silent moments that hint at the formative events of the film but not always explicitly revealing their nature. I’m always on board when the subtext of events is left up to interpretation, but not so much when we’re left in the dark about what is actually happening. For a film so contingent on the emotional expression of complex characters, the lack of narrative clarity only works to its detriment.

But Celeste’s scripting issues don’t completely hamper its ability to pack in some highly affecting emotional punches—which, in concert with Hackworth’s stunning visuals, make for some of the better artistic moments I’ve seen brought forth through the Queensland landscape. So while it probably won’t play well with general audiences, Celeste may well find a strong niche with arthouse movie-goers who value the artistic potential of Australia’s unique natural sites.