Praise (film)

Praise
Praise
Directed by	John Curran
Written by	Andrew McGahan
Based on	Praise; by Andrew McGahan
Produced by	Martha Coleman; Helen Watts
Starring	Peter Fenton; Sacha Horler;
Cinematography	Dion Beebe
Edited by	Alexandre de Franceschi
Music by	Warren Ellis; Antony Partos; Michael Turner
Production; company	Emcee Films
Distributed by	Strand Releasing
Release dates	11 September 1998 (Toronto International Film Festival); 22 April 1999 (Australia);
Running time	98 minutes
Country	Australia
Language	English
Box office	A$578,927

Praise is a 1998 Australian drama film directed by John Curran and adapted by Andrew McGahan from his novel of the same name. The film stars Peter Fenton and Sacha Horler and is about two outcasts who fall into an unlikely relationship.

Plot

Gordon, a 25-year-old chain-smoking asthmatic who unhappily works at a Brisbane bottle shop, moves into a run-down residential hotel. He becomes embroiled in a romance with Cynthia, a former co-worker who suffers from eczema and low self-esteem. Gordon and Cynthia occupy themselves with drink, drugs, sex, and Scrabble. A love triangle arises when Gordon's former love, Rachel, comes back into his life.

Cast

Peter Fenton as Gordon
Sacha Horler as Cynthia
Marta Dusseldorp as Rachel
Loene Carmen as Cathy
Joel Edgerton as Leo
Jason Clarke as Frank
Yvette Duncan as Molly
Tex Perkins as Raymond (as Gregory Perkins)
Skye Wansey as Helen
Richard Green as Dave
Lynette Curran as sexual health worker
Susan Prior as Sophie
Paul Lum as Darren
Fiona Mahl as Darren's girlfriend
Damon Herriman as Skinhead

Release

The film premiered at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival. It was also screened as part of the Panorama section at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival.

Critical reception

Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times wrote Praise "is uncanny and sizzling because it has the apparently aimless feel of a bad love affair of youth, the kind of story you would overhear the thoughtless Gordon telling somebody; you would move your chair closer to catch every seamy, and often hilarious, detail." He also praised Horler's performance and concluded, "Pungent, poignant and full of honest sentiment, Praise has a complicated emotional intelligence that is hard to come by in movies these days."

TV Guide reviewed the filmed positively and said, "McGahan's novel was compared to Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero in its depiction of anomic slackers numbing themselves with drugs and impersonal sex. But Charles Bukowski's pickled oeuvre is the better comparison; McGahan and filmmaker John Curran lack Ellis's delusions of glamour and their tour of the low life is sordid without being exploitative, coolly compassionate without in any way glossing over Gordon and Cynthia's crippling personal deficiencies. Their doomed fling is oddly hypnotic and ultimately haunting." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Praise is fun and strange, yet remarkably warm in its look at characters who let their hearts out of the bag as unwitting acts of salvation and, at the same time, self-destruction. If you want an offbeat portrait of romance, this is the movie."

On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, Praise has an approval rating of 88% based on 8 reviews. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 79 based on 12 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."