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Shine is an extremely underrated Australian film that is lovable, quite depressing and a bit funny as well. This film teaches no matter how hard or how bad things become in life for someone it is never too late to rise above it and to fix it again. It some ways, Shine is quite a hard film to watch but it can be a feel-good film too. This film made me feel all of those things in all different ways. It is a film that I think everybody should appreciate for how effective it can be for all sorts of different people whether they have suffered from a nervous breakdown before or not. I haven't seen very many Australian films but this is the best one I have seen so far. It takes a really good Aussie film to beat Shine to that spot at the current time.
Geoffrey Rush's performance is indeed very memorable and is a very hard performance to forget because he portrayed David with such power, emotion and even slight comedy involved. One thing that did surprise me was that Geoffrey Rush was only in the film for about 40 minutes out of the 106 minutes duration. Rush proved that he is the only actor who could have portrayed David almost perfectly especially after winning an Oscar for his performance. I was rather fascinated by how fast Rush was speaking when playing David and how precise he got his lines and made us feel the emotion inside David while talking at such a fast speed. David goes through a lot in his life. As a child and a teenager he was emotionally bullied by his father who pressurised him into succeeding in every single thing he does. Whenever he doesnt his father beats him up. When in London, he hits the big time where he ends up suffering the breakdown during the playing of the piano during a show. His life was what we thought dashed when he entered the institution but David discovered and so did we that his life became better when he was there because he wasn't under the pressure of his father. I liked Noah Taylor's performance as David as a teenager and young adult. He sort of made David look like he was mentally retarded but more severely than I was expecting before I saw this film.
The directing of this film is quite hard to describe in my mind. Well, what I can fully explain about it is that it's beautifully directed in different ways that shows different feelings that some films have. I can say what the directing was a bit like when I saw it. It reminded me a lot of the ways films like A Beautiful Mind and The Piano were directed.
Shine is the third best of the 5 Best Picture 1996 nominees after Fargo and the actual winner The English Patient. Shine is now my fourth favourite film of 1996 after Trainspotting, Fargo and The English Patient. As far as I'm concerned Shine is Geoffrey Rush's most memorable and best performance. He will be remembered for Pirates Of The Caribbean as well but Shine is his ultimate performance. Shine is a beautiful, inspiring and depressing story that is just too brilliant to hate. Shine is one of the best bio-pics of all time as well.
8/10
