Tender Hooks

Tender Hooks (1989)

Mitchell leaves the comfort of suburban bliss convinced that no-one can assess life who has not experienced it first-hand. Clear about what is not appropriate for her, she is searching for what is: a choice. She takes a job at an inner-city hair salon and a room in a nearby boarding house. Here she meets Gaye, who lives on love and spurts on her asthma inhaler. Through a quirk of fate she meets Rex in the hall with not much on but the imprint of a boot on his behind. She takes him in, captivated by his smile. They warm to one another at once. Rex appreciates Mitchell's style and is impossible to ignore. The drawback is he comes fully loaded: Mitchell discovers that where Rex is trouble follows close behind.

Data di uscita
1989-02-24
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Durata
1 h 35 min
Generi
Dramma, Romance, Commedia
Regista
Mary Callaghan

Cast

Curiosità

  • Incassi: 40,8K A$
  • Premi: 0 · Candidature: 1

Tender Hooks is a 1988 Australian romantic comedy drama film directed by Mary Callaghan and starring Jo Kennedy and Nique Needles. The film tells the story of Mitchell and Rex, a young Sydney couple who struggle with their clashing natures. It was Callaghan's first and only feature film.

Production

Producer Chris Oliver met Callaghan at Swinburne Film and Television School in the early 70s, then crossed paths with her again in Sydney during the early 1980s. He was drawn to Callaghan's script that ultimately became Tender Hooks (then titled Contact Visit) seeing it as an opportunity to move away from documentaries to "social realism" along the lines of Callaghan's earlier short film Greetings from Wollongong.

The original inspiration for the film came from a female friend of Callaghan's who regularly visited a boyfriend in jail. Callaghan noticed that not only was he "gradually hardening" from life in prison but that her life had become "suspended" as well, meaning they were both effectively "doing time". She told The Age:

I chose to look at prison and the prisoner from the point of view of the loved one - of the visitor, which is what I know - how Mitch is imprisoned by her love for Rex and the conflict it induces in both their lives... With Tender Hooks, I wanted to foster understanding through entertainment. It looks at society from the outside, from the point of view of characters who don't easily slot into it.

Oliver began seeking funding for the film in 1983. After a lengthy and complicated process involving multiple backers, pre-production finally began in August 1987. The shoot proved difficult for many reasons, including various technical issues and the fact that the script called for "over forty noisy, no-parking inner-city locations, many of them night exteriors, which had to be shot in 33 ten-hour days".

This was Kennedy's third feature film, having had her breakout role in the 1982 musical Starstruck then deciding to take her career in a new dramatic direction with 1985's Wrong World. Kennedy sought a "precarious" balance in depicting Mitchell, not wanting to make her seem like a victim while also trying to avoid overplaying her strength.

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