Stewart Page

A sweet, simple, idealised piece of nostalgia made up of wall to wall cliche'd characters, this tolerance-preaching movie ends up rewarding a bit of tolerance in its viewing. Not just with some excellent lines; "Well most men are totally gormless, but that doesn't stop them having children" and having some fun with cliche'd characters using cliche's "That is crossing the bridge after the horse has bolted"!, but perhaps by looking at Australia's historical and even current social issues from a different direction. Instead of an angry portrayal of in-motion social conflicts, Ladies in Black looks at pre-social revolution Australia in an impossibly big- hearted, idealised and whitewashed way. All ultimately happy and nice but not without delivering a sense of impending doom for cosy little traditional white-bread 1950's Sydney.. Racism against immigrants, women's inequality, even mandatory gay closeting (the store Floor Manager) are examined from the perspective of 1959 when there was not much of a conflict about these issues. The 'righteousness' of these forms of oppression were universally accepted by the nice perpetrators and nice victims alike (with the victims having no choice but to put up, albeit about to raise their voices in protest in the next decade). The calm before the storm. That the roles of the "Continentals" in the movie were almost all filled by local/Anglicised actors was a little lame, but very "50's", I guess