It will not come as a surprise to hear that "Drown" is a hard movie to watch at times. What you may not anticipate is that this is not entirely due to its themes of warring homophobia and homoeroticism in the ultra-Australian, ultra-masculine context of surf-lifesaving clubs. It's not even due to the sex or nudity, which, for an R18+ movie, is surprisingly tame. It is in fact due to the movie's distracting editing and over-reliance on slow motion and steady cam. Yes, that includes the obligatory night club scene where the character goes crazy on drugs and we see him dancing in slow motion with different music playing on the soundtrack than what everyone else is dancing to. You know, to show how alienated he is? If we hadn't gotten that already.
Some of the other touches work, such as flashbacks to childhood and adolescence, but these are spread on too thin. One gets the impression that "Drown" would have worked better as a short movie. It's the impressionist touches that work, but too much impressionism leaves little room for actual impressions.
You can also tell this movie was based on a play, which is confirmed in the end credits, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. When you see a play you have reached a tacit agreement with the theatre directors that, yes, you can suspend disbelief that the people on stage are wherever they're pretending to be. In a film, I'm not sure it works that way. We can see much farther past where the stage would end. In "Drown", we can even see cars and people. When a scene at the beach features multiple instances of assault, sexual degradation, forced nudity and near murder, you find yourself watching the cars in the background roll by, expecting one to stop and see what's going on. Not so in a play.
Some of the other touches work, such as flashbacks to childhood and adolescence, but these are spread on too thin. One gets the impression that "Drown" would have worked better as a short movie. It's the impressionist touches that work, but too much impressionism leaves little room for actual impressions.
You can also tell this movie was based on a play, which is confirmed in the end credits, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. When you see a play you have reached a tacit agreement with the theatre directors that, yes, you can suspend disbelief that the people on stage are wherever they're pretending to be. In a film, I'm not sure it works that way. We can see much farther past where the stage would end. In "Drown", we can even see cars and people. When a scene at the beach features multiple instances of assault, sexual degradation, forced nudity and near murder, you find yourself watching the cars in the background roll by, expecting one to stop and see what's going on. Not so in a play.