Sirens (1993)

A repressed British couple, Anthony and Estella Campion, become inexorably intoxicated by the sultry air surrounding artist Norman Lindsay and his bevy of naked models, played by Elle Macpherson, Kate Fischer and Portia de Rossi (pictured at right).

Anthony (Hugh Grant) is a priest – albeit a ‘progressive’ one with a taste for modern art and contemporary philosophy – and so he engages Lindsay in debates that ponderously dramatise the concerns of the film. A token emblem of class conflict is added to the discussion via the proletarian interpolations of Pru (Fischer).

Sirens is a film devoted to mellow compromises between all these extreme positions, rather than melodramatic confrontation. It is ultimately an extremely tame piece, in which nothing much really happens.

This is especially so on the sexual plane. Everything is fantasy, titillation, languorous craving – at least for the women characters. since (as Norman assures us) they are the “embodiment of sexuality”.

Anthony Campion
Hugh Grant
Estella Campion
Tara Fitzgerald
Norman Lindsay
Sam Neill
Sheela
Elle Macpherson
Giddy
Portia de Rossi
Pru
Kate Fischer
Rose Lindsay
Pamela Rabe
Lewis
Ben Mendelsohn
Tom
John Polson
Devlin
Mark Gerber
Jane
Julia Stone
Honey
Ellis MacCarthy
Bishop of Sydney
Vincent Ball

Director
John Duigan

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