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Review by Louise Keller:
'My mum and dad - they're entertainers,' confesses Tim (Khan Chittenden) to Jill (Emma Booth) after a night of intimacy. It is only now that he has plucked up enough courage to tell her - because he knows that his parents are 'different'. Set against a backdrop of Sydney's club scene, Clubland centers on the changing relationship between a controlling mother and her son who is blossoming under the influence of first love.
Review by Andrew L. Urban:
Clubland will make you cry - or feel like crying - in a final act that pays off all the work you've had to do to get there. Cherie Nowlan's film is like a case of Brian de Palma filmmaking, in which the centre of the storytelling as it plays on screen is not actually the centre of the story the filmmaker is telling. It's hard to talk about this without giving too much away, but here's a hint: the filmmaker's notes focus on the teenage romance, while the casting and the film's structure centre the story on the ageing entertainer and mother Jean (Brenda Blethyn). The title reflects and emphasises this.
© Urban Cinefile
