Plot
Four friends lose themselves in a carefree South-East Asian holiday. Only three come back. Dave and Alice return home to their young family desperate for answers about Jeremy's mysterious ... See full summary »
Release Year: 2012
Rating: 5.9/10 (1,676 voted)
Director:Kieran Darcy-Smith
Storyline
Four friends lose themselves in a carefree South-East Asian holiday. Only three come back. Dave and Alice return home to their young family desperate for answers about Jeremy's mysterious disappearance. When Alice's sister Steph returns not long after, a nasty secret is revealed about the night her boyfriend went missing. But it is only the first of many. Who amongst them knows what happened on that fateful night when they were dancing under a full moon in Cambodia?
Writers: ,
Taglines:
Four Went. Three came back. Only one of them knows what happened.
Filming Locations: Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia
Box Office Details
Budget: AUD 2,500,000
(estimated)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Goofs:
13th minute, they are sitting around the table with friends, the man stands up and ask others if they want something more to drink. He takes three bottles in his hands and one under his arm. In the next shot there is no bottle under his arm. See more »
User Review
Author:
Rating: 5/10
Wish You Were Here is a directorial debut for actor Kieran Darcy-Smith
and written by Darcy-Smith and his wife Felicity Price. The premise of
the movie is promising: four Australian friends are enjoying a holiday
in Cambodia, but one goes missing after a particularly "heavy" night of
partying. The movie is superbly shot and mostly well acted, but I was
nevertheless disappointed.
We see the holiday firstly as a 10 minute sequence which moved too
rapidly for me. As the movie progresses the holiday is shown in
beautiful flashbacks, which give us insight into the characters as well
as depicting some of the events that took place. When husband and wife,
Dave and Alice (Joel Edgerton and Felicity Price) return to Sydney,
they leave Alice's sister, Steph (Teresa Palmer), to try to find out
what happened to her boyfriend, Jeremy (Antony Starr). Dave is uneasy
and troubled, and even more so when Steph arrives home and the first of
many secrets is uncovered.
Joel Edgerton is marvellous as a man wracked with guilt and tormented
by secrets and lies he dare not reveal. Teresa Palmer is also very
good, but unfortunately her part is underwritten. I found that I became
a bit bored with Felicity Price's character, Alice, especially when we
start to see more and more of her and less of Dave. About half way
through, the movie seemed to become stuck, and I was wanting the
original storyline to develop and to give answers to the mystery. When
truth is finally revealed, it is terrifying, but it feels
anti-climactic, because we've had to wait too long.
I found it hard to sweep my expectations aside and see the movie as the
writers/director intended it to be: a story about the effect on family
life when one spouse hides a dark truth from their partner. I was
expecting more of a thriller, and even as I tried to accept the way the
plot unfolded, I still found it disappointing. At certain times I felt
sympathy for the characters and I felt their pain; but there were
scenes where the magnitude of emotions that the characters were
experiencing was not adequately conveyed, (for example, the ending).
Obviously, Wish You Were Here was not as engrossing for me as it was
for others, but I wish it had been.
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