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Canberra Today 12°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: ‘The Paperboy’ (MA) *** and a half

Paperboy
Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman in The Paperboy
A MIAMI newspaper sends Ward (Matthew McConaughey) and Yardley (David Oyelowo) to Ward’s home town to research a feature story about Hillary (John Cusack), on death row for murdering a brutal sheriff. Ward’s younger brother Jack (Zac Efron) comes along as their gofer. 

Charlotte brings cartons of material to Ward about the murder. She is Hillary’s fiancée and after we meet Hillary, we have to wonder why! Charlotte is sharp, uninhibited, crude and determined. Nicole Kidman looks delectable after putting on several kilos to play her. And it’s a cracker of a performance.

Director Lee Daniels co-wrote the screenplay of this uncompromising thriller with Peter Dexter, who also wrote the novel. It touches on a well-constructed collection of themes including capital punishment, the infinite variability of sexual behaviours and opportunities, fraternal relationships, small-town power bases, ethnic prejudices, swamp trash and more.

It’s not unreasonable to conclude that Daniels and Dexter were setting out to shock viewers with extreme behaviours both sexual and violent. But we have seen such things delivered more graphically elsewhere. Here they form a dramatic mortar joining the bricks of a plot with a well-rounded capacity to disturb but not damage our emotional equilibrium. That’s not such a bad thing, when you think about it.

At Palace Electric

 

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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