HE MIGHT HEAR YOU CAREFUL Movie Review

Careful, He Might Hear You is based on an autobiographical novel by Sumner Locke Elliot, who during the 1930s as a six-year old boy was the object of a custody fight between two of his aunts, both of whom had very different reasons for wanting the youngster. When director Carl Schultz was preparing the project, he knew that he wanted the disorientation and emotional vulnerability of the boy to be the movie's focus, so he made the crucial decision to design the entire film from the child's point-of-view. It's a risky move, of course, and the kind of thing that can become cutesy and precious when handled badly, but Careful, He Might Hear You manages to avoid the most obvious trap of over-romanticizing a child's universe. The other-worldly quality that seems totally at home in many of the films from Australia and New Zealand is nicely suited to this story of a child (Nicolas Gledhill) growing up with a strange, distant, and very beautiful new aunt (Wendy Hughes).Yet even though the images have a way of creeping into your memory and staying put, the film as a whole has a naggingly schematic feel, and never really connects emotionally. One more note of caution: much of the dreamy lyricism of Careful, He Might Hear You can be attributed to its exquisite widescreen images. Many of these will lose their impact on video.

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1984 (PG) 113m/C AU Nicholas Gledhill, Wendy Hughes, Robyn Nevin, John Hargreaves; D: Carl Schultz; W: Michael Jenkins; C: John Seale; M: Ray Cook. Australian Film Institute '83: Best Actress (Hughes), Best Film. VHS, Closed Caption FOX