Film review
by Richard Titelius

Tom White

Directed and produced by Alkinos Tsilimidos

When I first heard about this movie, I thought it would be a 
low-key, brooding, down-on-your-luck story and would contain 
little that could be considered uplifting, redeeming or even 
satirical.

How wrong I was proved to be!

The movie could even be billed as a family movie, as it has some 
poignant parent/child scenes that many families, but especially 
adolescents would be able to relate to.

However, first and foremost this movie is a statement about the 
modern condition of life in a contemporary urban Australian 
setting — one for the most part that is rendered invisible by 
mainstream art and culture.

Its message is reminiscent of the ideas of 20th century Marxist 
literary critic Walter Benjamin in one of his Theses of Modern 
History in which he invites us to look in the rear-view mirror as 
we drive forward into what we believe is a brighter, better and 
more modern future and see the junk that is piling up skyward 
behind us. That junk is the detritus of modernity and contains 
much of what we might call progress.

The movie starts off with Tom White living a life of the white 
middle-aged professional, who seemingly has it all, an 
interesting well paying job, a nice house in an exclusive 
suburban housing estate and a good family, a caring wife and two 
beautiful children.

But in the grand scheme of things he has only a very tenuous hold 
on everything which he has and is happening in his life. The 
stresses and strains of living in this often sterile and 
contrived existence (which incidentally he helps to create as an 
architect and urban planner of Clearwater Springs Estate which is 
being built on top of an old rubbish tip) cause his life to 
unravel in an ugly and uncontrolled way.

He gets taken off the urban design project to which he has 
dedicated himself, causing him to resent his work colleagues. He 
directs the anger and frustration he is feeling in his life at 
them in a poignant pub scene. To top it off he goes to the 
demountable of the project manager of the euphemistically named 
Clearwater Springs Estate and trashes the bloke and his office.

He can no longer go back and now physically and metaphorically 
crosses the river to the other side, leaving his possessions, 
identity and life on one side as he crosses over to the far 
shore. He soon loses his money, credit cards, good clothes and 
the mask of his daily urban civility as he begins to inhabit the 
strange, unfamiliar subterranean world of the city of Melbourne.

He begins to mix with some of the characters who inhabit this 
world either full or part time and learn what happens to people 
whom society rejects, forgets or would like to forget. To the 
credit of the movie, a large array of people and problems are 
represented in the story  — gays, drug users and pushers, 
Aboriginal people, criminals, young runaways, mentally ill people 
and homeless people, including our hero Tom White.

As cynical as he has become about his own existence, he is still 
at his core a person who tries to and does do good things. The 
last person he meets in his odyssey is the 14-year-old runaway 
Jet (outstandingly played by Jarryd Jinks), who awakens Tom to 
his parental responsibilities, which he has neglected in his 
absence from his family.

Circumstances in this liaison eventually lead to the unmasking of 
Tom and to him considering whether he has enough courage to, "end 
the odyssey and return home", or stay on the streets, homeless 
but free.

The film works on many levels and this makes it an engaging 
examination of modern life — quirky and even funny at times (as 
good satire is meant to be), helped along by a good script, 
directing, cinematography and outstanding performances. They come 
from some established names in Australian drama such as Colin 
Friels (who makes the role of Tom his own), Rachel Blake as Tom's 
wife, Bill Hunter as a grandiose denizen of the night, Angela 
Punch-McGregor as his wife, and some fresh vibrant talent in Dan 
Spielman who plays a rent boy with an extreme lifestyle and 
Jarryd Jinks who plays Jet, a young skateboarder and artist who 
is in danger of running off the rails.

One aspect of the movie which I found unsettling, was the amount 
of times various characters in the movie were throwing back well 
marked bottles and cans of VB and very little else.

Maybe when you're homeless, depressed or angry at life you don't 
give a shit what you drink or how much — just so long as it 
numbs the senses. But escapism is certainly not what this movie 
is about.