LOOK BOTH WAYS

Directed by Sarah Watt

Starring Justine Clarke

Reviewed by Byron Merritt

THUMBS UP INDEPENDENT FILM REVIEW RATING!

Death is a touchy subject to broach regardless of the medium in which you choose to expose it. It’s uncomfortable to even think about yet touches us all on many levels, and that is why LOOK BOTH WAYS succeeds.

Building on death in thought-provoking, sad, and often hilarious terms, Look Both Ways binds a small Australian community together after the death of a man upon the local railroad tracks. Meryl (Justine Clarke, DANNY DECKCHAIR) witnesses the horrible event and summons the authorities. The local media shows up, including photojournalist Nick (William McInnes, IRRESISTIBLE) who’s just been diagnosed with a rapidly spreading cancer. Also on the scene is Nick’s newspaper partner Andy (Anthony Hayes, NED KELLY) and eventually the deceased’s wife Julia (Daniella Farinacci, BROTHERS).

Meryl sees the event as just another death, something that fill her thoughts and her paintings on a daily basis. Her vivid imagination surrounding death is illustrated (literally) via laughingly silly animated sequences that are sure to tickle your dark funny bone. Photojournalist Nick sees himself on the railroad tracks, having just received a medical death sentence of metastatic testicular cancer. Newspaper writer Andy battles to understand life and death while struggling to be a good father to his divorced children, and the discovery that his new girlfriend is pregnant with an unwanted child. Widow Julia tries to understand the seemingly meaninglessness of her husband’s death as flowers flow into her home and she’s forced to come to grips with such a sudden loss.

Where Look Both Ways excels is in its delivery. Each person views death under their own unique umbrella, but are bound together by this one tragic event. Meryl and Nick become oddball lovers during a one night stand, while newsman Andy tries to sort through his chaotic and merciless lifestyle. Widow Julia and the engineer who was driving the train are two of the more interesting cases within the story, as they have no speaking parts until the very end, but are given ample screen time which speaks volumes on its own.

The message of the flick is simple but not forced: look at death both ways. See it as a necessity but don’t dwell on it. There is hope and fear within it, operating not at opposite ends of the spectrum, but as a gauge on how to live life without death looming ever present on one’s mind.

Meryl, the one who the film is mostly about, learns this lesson the hard way, coming to terms with her own fate, and that of Nick who’s cancerous life is destined to plow into hers with the force of a padded sledgehammer.

Click here for the Look Both Ways movie trailer!