Matialth
Good concept, poorly executed.
Curapedi
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
AutCuddly
Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,
Kien Navarro
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
paulrees-77740
Watched this film via a recommendation from the Amazon lists, and found it a very strange film indeed. It is not one I can describe easily, as it both uplifted me and also brought me down at the same time.It is - almost - a love story between two damaged and incomplete people, trying to find something that can make them whole, but not knowing at the time, that they are simply running away from reality.Some stunning images, clothing, and scenes bring the story to great heights, but the ending - although what needed to happen - brought things crashing down, and left me feeling very sad for both of them. A good film overall.
nammage
I have seen other BDSM films. Some I watched out of curiosity, others to see if it'd be told or used differently. They were all the same. This film starts out from an emotional viewpoint, in my opinion. A young teenage boy named Charlie goes through some horrible incidences from the start; most likely emotionally wrecking him and finds a sort of comfort in a BDSM mistress named Maggie who has emotional issues of her own. While the BDSM does play its role this film is not really centered on it, as a whole. This film seemed to be about people going through a lot of emotional pain. I can relate to that. A mother feeling as if she's losing her son (main character), a son who wants to escape, and the BDSM mistress going through her own tribulations with her own life, and a child of her own she is apart from but wants to be nearer to and even his emotional turmoil from not being near his mother. Like the toy gun incident. From his viewpoint it probably wasn't about the gun but the fact his mother gave it to him but he wasn't allowed to keep it. There is a bit of dry humor to this film, especially during the BDSM scenes. Not that the film is necessarily making fun of what these men's sexual fantasies are but that it just comes off funny. While this does have its dry humor this is not a funny film, in the least. So emotionally wrought. Every time Maggie dominates Charlie it felt like she was losing herself more and more.The legal age issue; I saw this before in "Noksaek uija" where apparently an older woman had a sexual relationship with a young boy (he was 19), the age of consent in that country, at the time that film was released, was 13. They changed that law since then but the character in that film was obviously not 13. Much older. In Australia the age of consent is 16 yet here it seems they have a social worker talk to Charlie and he states "I'm 16!" which he knows it's legal yet films like this like to say it's not or imply it; an untruthful bias that always seems to be on their line. According to Australian law on this subject (which I read) it is only illegal for someone to have sex with a 16/17 year old who is in a "supervisory" role. Maggie, even though a Dominatrix, is not in that role, so it's perfectly legal for them to have a sexual relationship. That's the lie this film tells; and films like it. If you think it should be a higher age don't lie about it in a film, take action outside of it. Like the other film, and being a technical rater, that deducts this otherwise emotional film down a bit. Otherwise, I quite enjoyed it.
twilliams76
In this Australian coming-of-age film, 16-year-old Charlie Boyd (Harrison Gilbertson - Need for Speed) happens on a family tragedy which profoundly affects his relationship with his mother. Unable to relate to her and appearing to be a bit of a loner with few friends, Charlie finds himself curiously drawn to a new woman in town (Emmamuelle Beart - 8 Women) whose beauty captivates him ... although it also appears to capture the attention of several men as she has men entering and leaving her home at all hours of the day and night.After breaking onto her grounds one afternoon, Charlie discovers Maggie (Beart) with a male client in a rather compromising situation. Charlie learns that Maggie is a dominatrix (for the right price) and he longs to be near her so much he begs her to hire him as her garden/pool boy ... which she reluctantly agrees to do.The pairing of the two characters in this film is oddly uncomfortable as there is a stigma stateside involving sexual relations (of any kind) with anybody below the age of consent. As Australia's age of consent is 16, this is a societal difference some won't accept but it does make a difference when viewing the movie.Beart is a strikingly beautiful woman and she is rather believable here as a secretive woman who is as fragile as she is strong. Her wounded soul is believable and I understood her character's frustration, anger and misery. Gilbertson is fine here although he doesn't have to do quite as much as Beart. He portrays a quiet, seething anger rather convincingly and his seeming inability to fully grasp the film's content might be intentional ... as he is still so young himself.The film is very tame ... one shouldn't be worried about anything that may or may not be shown on screen. The two need what is inside the other person ... so there is no bared flesh in this BDSM film like Fifty Shades of Grey (it has even fewer risqué sequences than R100).My Mistress has a decent story about two people at its center, it just isn't overly well-developed. I'd have liked a little more of these two emotionally bonding ... I felt like I/it needed more.
hieronymous-248-449082
This is presumably intended to be a 'significant' and 'artistic' film full of deep meanings on life, love and growing up. Its only claim to any of these is that the director made full use of longeurs where characters move very, very s l o w l y which served only to prolong an already dire experience.None of the players appear to have acted in anything before, wooden would be too kind a description. The leading boy is an unlikeable kid who shows how he is 'suffering' by writing graffiti on his widowed mother's garage. His sexy new neighbour just happens to gag and whip men in her spare time (as you do in the suburbs) and after that I lost interest.So will you.Any resemblance to real life experiences of adolescence is purely absent.