Jon Pyper

'I know, let's film all my wank fantasies as a series of vignettes, and then stitch them all together to make a movie,' said everyone whose film then crashed and burned. Over long, over egged, and overly self-distracted.

Oh God, the trailer on TV made it look so pretentious and melodramatic that I couldn't be bothered watching.

A brutalised abuser and his enabler wife destroy a young life. Not content with this, they bring a brand new life into the family and start the process all over again, the mother proudly declaring that she will do to her daughter exactly what the father has done to his son. The trouble is, we're mostly told all of his, rather than shown it, and the piece falls flat. Compared to Lee Tamahori's 'Once Were Warriors', it fails to get to grips with violent abuse and its underlying causes, offering us instead a muted, intellectual exploration as opposed to a critical revelation. Perhaps it was written by someone on the outside looking in, who ultimately honours the mother and father, rather than revealing the full horror of their soul destroying selfishness. A numbed out world presented in an inappropriately numbing way. Such a shame.