The Eye Of The Storm
ABC1 | AIRDATE: Sunday, 3 June 2012
Directed By Fred Schepisi; screenplay by Judy Morris; based on the novel, The Eye of the Storm written by Patrick White; Produced By Antony Waddington, Gregory Read and Fred Schepisi
Made in 2011 and given a major cinema release.
In a Sydney suburb, two nurses, a housekeeper and a solicitor attend to Elizabeth Hunter (Charlotte Rampling) as her expatriate son and daughter convene at her deathbed. In dying, as in living, Mrs. Hunter remains a formidable force on those around her.
Estranged from a mother who was never capable of loving them Sir Basil (Geoffrey Rush), a famous but struggling actor in London and Dorothy (Judy Davis), an impecunious French princess, attempt to reconcile with her. In doing so they are reduced from states of worldly sophistication to floundering adolescence.
The children unite in a common goal – to leave Australia with their vast inheritance. Using the reluctant services of their family lawyer Arnold Wyburd (John Gaden), a man long in love with Mrs Hunter, they scheme to place their mother in a society nursing home to expedite her demise.
Panic sets in as the staff sense the impending end of their eccentric world. Mrs Hunter confesses her profound disappointment at failing to recreate the state of humility and grace she experienced when caught in the eye of a cyclone fifteen years earlier.
For the first time in their lives, the meaning of compassion takes the children by surprise. During a ferocious storm Mrs Hunter finally dies, and in the process she relives her experience in the cyclone. Standing on a beach, she is calm and serene as devastation surrounds her.
Source: ABC Media Release
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