Jo Kennedy and Heather Rose completely naked in Dance Me to My Song (1998)

From Johnny Moronic.

Johnny’s comments and video link:

Continuing Australian Classics with another Rolf de Heer movie.

Dance Me to My Song is a 1998 drama about Julia (Heather Rose) who has fairly severe cerebral palsy but lives in her own home although she needs care which she gets from her harried, abusive at-home nurse Madelaine (Jo Kennedy from Starstruck). Not only is Madelaine unreliable, she impersonates Julia on the phone, brings men to the house to have sex with and also steals from her when she remembers that she’s supposed to be looking after her. One day while Madelaine is out, Julia goes out the front of her house and gets the attention of a man who is walking by, Eddie (John Brumpton) and she gets him to help her despite him not really wanting to be there but he takes a liking to her. Also every once in a while her sister Rix (Rena Owen) comes and visits her and gets Julia out of the house. Eddie keeps coming back to visit Julia and they strike up a friendly bond but Julia wants more and gets Madelaine’s help in initating it. The first attempt ends with Julia chickening out and Madelaine decides to seduce Eddie. Then Julia makes another attempt to go further with Eddie without Madelaine’s help and when she finds them together, she flips out and takes it out on Julia causing incredible tension between the two and an increase in the abuse Madelaine gives towards Julia. Things come to a head when Julia gets Madelaine fired and she doesn’t take it well.

Co-written by Heather (who briefly appears in Bad Boy Bubby as one of the disabled patients Bubby bonds with late in the movie), this is a fairly charming movie that doesn’t down play Heather’s disability for a nice movie and instead becomes a far more rewarding movie. The first 15 minutes are a tough slog, there’s no sugar-coating about Julia’s disability or of the abuse that Madelaine performs on Julia with and without her knowledge. One moment, Madelaine seems nice and gets along with Julia but she can turn just as quickly and Julia tries to get her own back by attempting to ram Madelaine in her wheelchair. Dance Me to My Song is a well-made movie that is uncomproming about disability and the relationships disabled people have. The three lead performances are very good and the relationship between Julia and Eddie is handled quite well without getting overly sexual. There are hard-to-watch scenes in the movie but in fact it’s quite accessible after it’s opening scenes, more than some of de Heer’s other movies.

As always with VHS rips, the quality is down but these videos are pretty good. I know that this movie was released on DVD strangely as a hidden feature on Rolf de Heer 6 movie (7 including this movie) DVD pack but that has been out-of-print for probably 15 years. There’s been no effort to re-release any of de Heer’s movies outside of Bad Boy Bubby getting another version every couple of years. Also interesting to see he has a new movie out, The Survival of Kindness, his first in 10 years which looks about as accessible as his movies usually are.