Rain (DVD)

The debut film by director Christine Jeffs, RAIN, records with charm the confusion of coming of age amidst domestic disintegration. In Far North New Zealand in 1972, Janey (Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki) has traveled to the beach for a long lazy summer with her family. As the days get longer, Janey teaches her little brother, Jim (Aaron Murphy), to swim while their Scotch-sedated parents ignore each other, wallowing in their messy marriage. From hungover days to beach party nights, they fake their way through parenting. It is late into one such night, while party music plays loudly, that Janey's mother, Kate (Sarah Peirse), lulls photographer Cady (Marton Csokas) into a swirling secret embrace. Though Janey detests the drunken dramatics, her mother's boozing and flirting symbolize the freedoms of adulthood, so Janey steals sips and smokes, and kisses the neighbour's kid. But he's just a boy, and Janey's becoming a woman, so she sets her sights instead on her mother's pick, Cady.

As the title suggests, the oceanic climate of New Zealand leads to dramatic changes of weather, and also reflect RAIN's mid-film change of heart. RAIN first sparkles like the bright blue sea and warm summer nights in the glow of fairy lights, then crumbles under bruised whiskey-coloured skies. With a superb musical score, the Split Enz' Neil Finn band provides retro-styled melancholia indebted to the Brothers Gibb.