Do you ever feel empty at the end of a film? Not just disappointed, but done. Most people give up on movies for a while after this point. I treat as sampling bad food – that was awful, now let’s cleanse the palate and move on. And with that, I present The Eye of the Storm, which for a few of you will require a full palate cleanse.
Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis return home to feign humility as mom (Charlotte Rampling) awaits death. Neither of these kids has the sense to show actual humility and it’s kind of embarrassing for everybody. Basil Hunter (Rush)- is that the guy you employ when you want to find the Spice Girls? — is an actor of such renown he can parlay his Australian knighthood into getting laid by any number of vixens despite his troll-like features. Dorothy de Lascabanes (Davis) is an ex-princess, awwww; she can get sponsored by wealthy patrons wherever she goes and yet she can stomach none of them. Nor anybody else for that matter. And both of them are penniless moochers.
Pretty sure I had the Dorothy de Lascabanes with the Veal Oscar and a ’98 Bordeaux last week.
I’m sorry, this is the most difficult set of protagonists to attempt earning my empathy since River’s Edge. How about mom? Well, 
Alzheimabeth fades in and out of reality while surrounding herself with a gold digger, Sister Mary of the Boredomites and the last remaining member of the Cirque de Naziel. And, oh yeah, she has no love of her children, which is clear not only in the present, but in the numerous flashbacks as well.
Two spoiled losers return home to see their semi-humane, semi-estranged mother semi-lucid? Where do I sign up?
The acting in Storm is very odd: Charlotte Rampling decided what the audience really needed was an oversexed deathbed-ridden septuagenarian. Judy Davis decided if she just pouted some more, people were bound to sympathize with her and Geoffrey Rush chose to pause intermittently during his screen time as if constantly awaiting a photo op. You know, I do like all three of these actors … just not here.
Today, I want to forget all that and consciously ask: who is this movie for? Estranged princesses? Bankrupt actors? Mothers who birthed children they don’t care for? This is a trio of folks who are the very essence of what normal people dislike about the stereotypical view of the overprivileged class – your empty lives are tributes to shallow values and condescending temperaments. No matter how human you pretend to be, you can’t seem to escape elitism and selfishness and some sort of weird philosophy of entitlement.
I know this isn’t how real moneyed folks act – or at least I hope it isn’t. There’s no justification for any attention given this film. None.
Two brats spoiled by success
Find middle age in great distress
Ill mom leaves them empty
In pain non-exempt-y
Oh well, there’s always excess
Not Rated, 119 Minutes
D: Fred Schepisi
W: Judy Morris
Genre: The pains of the spoiled
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Forgotten princesses
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Commoners
