There were some subscriber-only hints about this movie over at THR earlier this year, and now the cats out of the bag. Variety reports that Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Bettany are heading to Australia for director Shirley Barrett's South Solitary. The feature is one of many that is going to be funded by Film Finance Corp., as it gears up to join the Australian Film Commission and "make a super agency called Screen Australia."According to IMDb, the film will focus "on a disgraced young woman and a soldier suffering from the ongoing effects of shell shock who discover a great need for companionship and hope in the face of hostile elements." I have a feeling you can tell who will play what role. There is no word on when this will be set, but it could be either present-day or the past, since one of the other films being funded focuses on Australian SAS soldiers in Vietnam (The Last Man).
What's confusing me is the claim that this will be set in Tasmania. South Solitary is a small island with a light house off the coast of New South Wales, which is part of the mainland. It's location is south of Brisbane, and north of Sydney, so I don't see how Tasmania fits into this. (Is there another lighthouse island called South Solitary?!) If you drove to the tip and took a ferry to Tas, it would be almost 2,000 km. That's not exactly IN Tasmania or off the coast of it. Any Aussies out there who could clarify?
1. My only theory is that it's set in the past. Tasmania is still very much "stuck in the past" and the actual South Solitary is probably too constructed or built up to act as this place decades ago so they film it in Tasmania to save having to CGI erase all the buildings and such.
...just a guess. I live in Victoria (the state between NSW and Tas) so what would I know?
Posted at 1:16AM on Apr 5th 2008 by Glenn@StalePopcorn