Movie Review: The Dry (2020)

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From the desolate, sun-drenched terrain of beige, brown, and yellow as far as the eye can see to the constant threat of bushfire thanks to the dryness of the environment and its unforgiving temperatures, the moody mythos of rural Australia is perfectly suited to western noir storytelling.

Not quite John Ford and not quite John Dahl – to audiences in the American southwest watching director Robert Connolly's new adaptation of Jane Harper's award-winning first novel “The Dry,” the film's overwhelmingly massive landscape seems equal parts foreign and familiar as it spools out before us onscreen.

Easily the most important character in this slow-burn thriller, in the hands of Connolly, his co-scripters Harry Cripps and Samantha Strauss, and his gifted lead actor Eric Bana (who also produced), the setting serves as a terrific allegory for the internal battle playing out in the mind of our main character as well.

As Australian federal police officer Aaron Falk, Bana's conflicted protagonist leaves his residence in Melbourne to return to his rural hometown of Kiewarra for the first time in over twenty years in order to bury his best high school friend Luke (Martin Dingle Wall) who killed his wife and young son in an alleged murder-suicide. Unwilling to believe that their son could do such a thing, after visiting with Luke's parents, Aaron promises them that he'll look into his family's deaths, even though he has no jurisdiction or any real link to the man his former friend had become after all this time.

An intelligent, evocative look at the way that the past and the present can coexist simultaneously, as Aaron investigates the present-day crime alongside a young sergeant (played by Keir O'Donnell), the film reveals more about his complicated history with Luke, including the suspicious death of a beautiful young woman they knew in high school that still haunts Aaron to this day. Feeling like the two cases are inextricably linked (or perhaps just needing them to be in order to find closure), just like the dry tinder of the ground beneath his feet that could catch fire at any moment, Aaron must figure out what is and what is not in his power to control.

A methodical actor who's at his best when playing contemplative characters who keep their cards close to their chest while embarking on external missions that wind up having to do more with what's going on internally than anything else, “The Dry” boasts one of Bana's strongest and most introspective turns in years.

Shot four-and-a-half hours outside of Melbourne in the flat, dry landscape of the Wimmera region of Victoria with its wide-open spaces that convey both mystery and danger and the secrets of a small, deceptively close-knit community beginning to come undone, “The Dry” feels like a western neo-noir descendant of “One False Move” and “Flesh and Bone.” But like an existential mystery made by a post-“Paris, Texas” era Wim Wenders, “The Dry” is much more intrigued by the psychology of its people rather than the traditionally plot-heavy machinations of a '90s thriller. Richly atmospheric and decidedly deliberate, it's the best Australian film of this type since director Ivan Sen released the brilliant sequel to his breakout hit “Mystery Road” in 2016 with “Goldstone.”

Taking time to develop, as we meet the people of Kiewarra, we aren't quite sure who and how many of these citizens and threads might prove to be connected in nefarious ways. One of those films where you find yourself following Bana into a small-town bar, look around and instantly know that every single person onscreen has an unpredictable story to tell, while a few of its supporting characters – including Aaron and Luke's old friend Gretchen (well played by Genevieve O'Reilly) – are a bit shortchanged by the narrative as a whole, it's a truly effective sleeper overall. Preferring to take the long way around in such a way that the film's first hour requires the patience of a prestige TV mystery series, once “The Dry” finds its footing, everything clicks into place.

Building up energy as it continues like a cyclone whipping around dust in the Victorian flatlands, as Aaron works to solve both cases using his heart as well as his head, the film reaches a conclusion as shocking as it is true. Surprisingly stellar in its deployment of red herrings and misdirection, in offering viewers a brainy, unexpected respite from mindless studio ventures, “The Dry” strikes a match against celluloid and brings the heat of summer movie season directly to the screen.

Text ©2021, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: Angel of Mine (2019)

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Shocked when her ex-husband Mike (Luke Evans) hands Lizzie (Noomi Rapace) papers announcing that he's going to sue her for full custody of their shared son Thomas (Finn Little), Mike steels his gaze and tells Lizzie, "he feels your darkness." And it's a darkness we see close-up in Strangerland director Kim Farrant's sophomore feature length fictional feature Angel of Mine, which, written by Lion scribe Luke Davies and television veteran David Regal, is based upon the 2008 French film L'empreinte de l'ange from director Safy Nebbou.

A nerve-wracking, intense psychological portrait of a woman who might be unraveling or — even scarier — might be onto something, Angel of Mine finds Lizzie developing a growing obsession with Lola (Annika Whiteley), a local seven-year-old, whom she believes might just be the daughter she lost seven years earlier.

The sister of one of her son's classmates, Lizzie follows her intuition to the exclusion of everything else and befriends Lola's mother Claire (Yvonne Strahovski) under the guise of being interested in buying the home that she and her husband Bernard (Richard Roxburgh) are trying to sell before they move far away. With the clock now ticking and the family's leave date drawing near, Lizzie grows increasingly desperate to not only spend time with the girl whose big brown eyes and face she feels resembles her own but also try to find some sort of evidence to back up her claim.

An at times harrowing and intentionally uncomfortable film that is utterly dependent upon the portrayal of Lizzie, thankfully Noomi Rapace — who also produced — is more than up to the task. Withholding details about the tragedy that has not only left its mark on the fragile, grief stricken Lizzie but also propels the film forward, like an expert poker player, writers Davies and Regal and director Farrant wait until it's absolutely necessary to reveal the cards Rapace holds close to her chest in a gut-wrenching confrontational scene between Rapace and an equally powerful Strahovski.

Mistakenly advertised as a traditional thriller, Angel of Mine is more reminiscent of a Cassavetes picture with Lizzie a Woman Under the Influence of grief. And while it does test a viewer's patience early on as we struggle to see where the film is going and find ourselves cringing as Rapace closes in on the family as a target, overall, despite some issues with pacing, Farrant's film is a largely successful one.

Benefiting strongly from having a woman at the helm as well as her refusal to amp up early scenes with the two women or frame Lizzie like Glenn Close's Alex in Fatal Attraction, Angel is made with sensitivity and compassion, even when it completely holds us off balance. With a central thesis that incidentally ties in with the current Me Too debate since it asks us whether or not we should "believe all women," when it comes to Lizzie and/or Claire, Farrant urges us to do just that and believe that what they say is true for them, regardless of where the storyline actually goes.

A solidly constructed Australian feature, Angel of Mine takes some real risks by not falling into the well known rhythm of a traditional work of suspense and it's a gamble that pays off mightily, thanks to the ensemble. Although it's unsettling to say the least to ask us to — as Luke Evans' Mike might say — feel Lizzie's darkness, with performances such as these and a director well matched to the material, we're more than eager to see this Angel through whatever hell it might endure, since we know that whatever the outcome, we're going to see some light.


Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

DVD Review: The Wiggles Go Bananas!

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So okay, on the one hand, I'm always worried that someday-- like one of those computer hard drives that's about to read "full"-- my brain will finally snap shut from too much useless information. Yet, on the other, I find myself strangely filled with pop culture envy whenever I'm faced with something with which I am completely unfamiliar.

And of course, this was precisely what happened when I met the four human Australian coloring crayons a.k.a. the singing, dancing Wiggles from Down Under who beamed like they'd just gotten their teeth whitened at the dentist and were told that the effects would only last for the duration of the running time of a children's television program.

My then toddler aged nephew (who's now all about skateboarding and video games) inexplicably loved The Wiggles-- dancing with glee as the grown male stars went through more costume changes than a Cher show, moving from country to pop to songs involving mini-teaching lessons involving colors and shapes-- and not just their brightly colored long sleeved shirts which helped me tell them apart beyond the level of superficial attractiveness or singing talent.

And thus I realized instinctively that part of the appeal of this eye candy-centric show was that it possessed just about the same attention span as its target audience. Whether it was employing video game like graphics that seemed to cry "green screen" with colors that pop and segments that went anywhere from ten seconds to a minute and a half if it was particularly catchy-- any given Wiggles episode is almost dizzingly fast-paced to the point that if you were an adult or even a child over the age of five looking for a narrative, you are going to grow seasick or disinterested fairly quickly since even Barney had more of a cohesive glue holding it all together.

Yet, for highly energetic ADD prone or just excitable toddlers, it was just the ticket. Now with a series of spinoff DVDs filled with more music, color, endlessly packaged with songs and even guest stars as this disc in particular boasts Kylie Minogue (and jokingly a special appearance by Kylie's sparkly pink shoes) as well as "Australia's" John Waters to make the much needed distinction between their child friendly crooner and our helmer of films like Pink Flamingos-- the group of four are back on a new disc from Warner Brothers with the promise that this time around they're giving us a "fun way to learn about animals."

While animals are definitely used throughout-- I can't say that I learned anything in particular about that specific subject matter. Although I what I did learn was that I never want to see Minogue ever sing (or most likely lip-sync) "Monkey Man" a.k.a. "huggin' up the big monkey man" again nor witness The Wiggles use Elvis to do a send-up on his King status for their version of a lion as The King of the jungle. And while admittedly I'm the furthest thing from their target audience as the nonlinear and just plain nonsensical theatrics made me miss the children's shows of my youth--however-- as I'd seen years earlier with my nephew, I know those from 1-3 and or possibly even 5 depending on boredom and maturity level will find at least some enjoyment out of the forty-seven minute disc.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

TV on DVD: The Shiralee (1987) -- 2-Disc Set

The Beloved Masterpiece Theatre
& Disney Channel Aired Australian Miniseries
Journeys to DVD
3/10/09

Also Recommended from Acorn Media:

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It's a good thing that Australian actor Bryan Brown was able to add the trade of shearing sheep to the special skills section of his resume following his turn as Luke in the miniseries The Thorn Birds. Especially since amazingly four years after that groundbreaking work aired (which introduced him to his real life and miniseries wife Rachel Ward)-- once again Brown is shearing sheep in 1987's Australian epic The Shiralee.

Based on D'Arcy Niland's 1955 novel of the same name and winner of two television awards in its native country wherein it was adapted by Tony Morphett for director George Ogilvie-- the miniseries which also was released in the UK to a viewership of fourteen million fans and in the United States on both the Disney Channel and PBS's Masterpiece Theatre is another unexpected gem served up by our friends at Acorn Media.

Thankfully giving the handsome and charismatic Brown a far more fascinating and rich role than the one he'd played in Thorn Birds-- we're first acquainted with his outback drifter Macaulay a.k.a. Mac as he walks down dirt roads in the endless heat trying to get by any way he can whether it's via boxing or ranching which is made all the more difficult given his particular "shiralee."

An Australian slang term for "burden," Mac's shiralee is his adorably head-strong nine year old daughter Buster (Rebecca Smart), whom he rescues from his selfish, promiscuous wife, taking her on the road with him in the middle of the night when he finds his soon to be ex in the arms of another man and Buster liquored up with milk and booze given to her by her apathetic mother.

Telling his daughter that "mom's useless; we don't want her," Mac and Buster go in search of a living, running into old acquaintances as the two episode-- roughly one hundred and ninety minute miniseries-- jumps back in time showing us what has led to Mac's situation wandering in the early 1950s with a daughter in tow.

It moves back for a superlative opening hour that introduces us to Brown's Mac as a former city man who goes out to "the bush" to find work where he falls in love with a local lass named Lily (Noni Hazlehurst) before a wicked stunt is pulled on him and he's forced out of town. Throughout the series, Brown's Mac finds himself pulled almost like an involuntary magnet back to Lily over the course of the decades that follow during marriage, loss, illness, heartache, and death.

A terrific showcase for Brown whom audiences most recently saw in Baz Luhrmann's misguided epic Australia-- this underrated and forgotten miniseries that also boasts a great turn by young Rebecca Smart in her television award winning role seems far superior to the beautiful if uneven big screen epic co-starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

A refreshingly character driven work about a father bonding with his daughter (the likes of which we seldom see in a world of father/son and mother/daughter gender divided movies)-- while one main complaint about the two-disc set for The Shiralee is its lack of subtitles to ease us into better understanding of the thick accents, it's nonetheless one of Acorn's finest offerings in recent memory.

Additionally, it can and should be shared among families given its positive message, stellar production values, and of course the impressive Cocktail and Gorillas in the Mist star Brown who-- in addition to shearing sheep faster than anyone in the history of TV movies-- is a remarkable actor whom we shouldn't simply dismiss as Meggie's no-good Thorn Birds husband Luke (especially considering the amusing discovery that he and the real Meggie have been together for decades).

TV on DVD: Rain Shadow-- Series 1

As the stern, secretive, and guarded veterinarian Dr. Kate McDonald (Rachel Ward) quickly learns at the start of the six-part Australian miniseries Rain Shadow, first impressions can be deceiving. Having chased away six other young wide-eyed optimists in a “revolving door of assistants," when the fresh-faced recent university graduate Jill Blake (Victoria Thaine) arrives to become her first female co-veterinarian at her fledgling practice in the desolate and unforgiving terrain of the drought-ridden Australian outback, Kate assumes it’s only a matter of minutes before Jill will climb back into her mini “roller skate with windows” and drive back to the big city. And although Jill’s resume reveals a listless nature and the inability to stay in one position for any significant amount of time, the bright and overly confident young woman toughs it out alongside Kate in the small town of Paringa and refuses to quit-- discovering that despite her status as an outsider, even the questioning locals greet her with much more courtesy than her new employer.

And while attitude-wise the women couldn’t be more different, upon closer inspection, one realizes how similar they are, as the emotionally haunted widow Kate who’s remained in Paringa for the ten years following her five year marriage which brought her from England to Australia, still remains something of an enigma and outsider as well. While it’s never referenced directly, the ten year death of her husband marks the same length of time that the town has gone without rain and as the filmmakers noted in a behind-the-scenes making of featurette on the 2-Disc DVD set of Rain Shadow--Series 1, Kate seems to be the human representation of the setting as someone director Fiona Banks notes is “so firmly rooted,” she’s become “part of the landscape.” Yet, looks and impressions can mislead as not only Kate discovers but viewers do as well upon realizing that for a work that upon first glance one might liken to Sarah Plain and Tall or The Little House on the Prairie is instead much more topical and compelling in its stark, gripping portrayal of not only the human drama involved in the characters’ lives but also-- as indicative of its title-- the underlying centerpiece about climate change, in serving up a “real social situation that has its own sense of drama,” as explained on the disc.

Ward and Thaine give remarkable performances in this underrated gem of a series also featuring a tremendous soundtrack from the Audreys, which finally makes its stateside debut from Acorn Media in the form of a lush 2-Disc gorgeously packaged set with a breathtaking transfer to DVD. So popular in its native Australia that a second season has been commissioned, as noted in the press release and despite the one flaw of not including English subtitles or closed captioning for the deaf or hard of hearing-- it’s a wonderful set that’s as engrossing as it is incredibly timely.

While the actresses both reveal that they were drawn to the work precisely because it is so rare to have two strong and complicated female leads, it’s a marvel on so many levels as Ward continued that essentially it takes the paradigm of “the old cop and the rookie cop” and gives it a gender switch. Typically the roles of women in the realm of miniseries and melodramas find them bonding over their families and marital woes but in the world of Rain Shadow, they are the two most highly-educated and professional inhabitants of Paringa. However, as they and the audience frequently discover, intellectual knowledge and the truth of life are often two entirely different things as Jill learns the difference between moral and literal laws since Paringa seems to survive with its mere twenty-five centimeters of rain per year completely in the gray area between what’s simply black and white. When she begins to fear that a certifiably dangerous disease has begun infecting some of the sheep, Jill must come to terms with how such a governmental announcement and action would impact a community that’s barely hanging on as farmers find themselves losing their property and barely making ends meet.

Filling the series with a cast of extraordinarily fascinating and rich supporting characters including the hardworking, embittered Tom (Tom O’Sullivan) who fears that he may not be able to financially take over his family farm when his father dies, the handsome Shane (Nathin Butler) who’s walking his flock of sheep to greener pastures, the wealthy and influential Lachlan and Sarah Balfour (Kim Knuckey and Heather Mitchell) who seem to hold sway over the community, Kate’s hermit neighbor Steve Willis (Edwun Hodgeman) who’s as illusive as Charlie on Charlie’s Angels, and also the lonely Harry Greene (Shane Withington). In Rain Shadow, there’s never a shortage of drama.

However, perhaps the most fascinating character is in the form of Gary Sweet’s Larry Riley, the mysteriously wealthy sports car driving, cash carrying, handsome yet intimidating client of Kate’s whose cancer-ridden cat is his “best mate.” Although no one has any distinct idea of what exactly Larry does for a living (one of the Paringa rules it seems is to cease asking questions aside from ambushing Jill about her marital status as soon as she arrives), when he shows up with a gunshot wound, we’re fairly certain it’s not exactly something on the level. Yet the “almost subversive but quite likable character,” whom Sweet describes as a “bad guy with integrity,” is one of Kate’s most loyal allies which definitely comes in handy as the women find themselves threatened by a unscrupulous, sexist vet eager to put them out of business.

Surprisingly topical in dealing not just with economic woes, climate change, sexism, euthanasia, family duty, and the disappearance of farms from the global landscape, there’s also a terrific subplot involving the arrival of an Iraqi doctoral level scientist, Achmed Aziz (Panda Likoudis) who soon gets over his shock of seeing women holding such a professional rank to begin finding himself drawn in by the community, becoming the unlikely sidekick to Harry Greene as they study the weather patterns of the area for more than one hundred years.

Although I fear it will go overlooked because of first impressions, hopefully you’ll take a cue from Ward’s stubborn Kate and take a chance on the wonderfully crafted Australian import Rain Shadow which hits DVD shelves and online retailers including Amazon on October 21, 2008 exclusively from Acorn Media. And in doing so, I think you'll find that-- much like Jill-- there's much more to Rain Shadow and the fictitious setting of Paringa than initially meets the eye.

Noise

Director: Matthew Saville

Although less claustrophobic than the insanity tinged genius of Aronofsky’s Pi and far more accessible to daring art-house audiences than that experimentally trippy classic, I was initially reminded of Aronofsky’s fascination with visual and aural experimentation within the first few brilliant moments of writer/director Matthew Saville’s Noise. With an overwhelming emphasis on auditory trickery, the film begins on confident cinematic footing with the audacity of launching right into the psychologically loud yet eerily quiet mayhem as-- typically lost in her headphones-- young McDonald’s employee Lavinia (Maia Thomas), boards an Australian train only to discover after a moment of nonchalantly getting lost in the post-work fatigue and rhythm of her music that all of the other passengers have been massacred by gunfire.

Following this shocking discovery, we’re introduced to a parallel story, also set at the train station as police officer Graham McGahan (Brendan Cowell), who has privately suffered for quiet months with ringing in his ears, experiences a blackout while boarding an escalator at a stop down the line, only to awaken later at a hospital where he’s diagnosed with tinnitus and learns he may eventually lose his hearing.

The two stories link up quickly as McGahan’s medical note is ridiculed by his bullying hyper-masculine superiors and he’s assigned night duty, babysitting a caravan at a crime scene adjacent to not only the train but also the mysterious death of a local woman in the community. These two tragic occurrences sound an alarm in their sleepy, suburban community that they may be somehow related as the justifiably frightened sole witness Lavinia tries to grapple with what had happened the night she boarded the train and McGahan must deal with random locals who visit him to complain, jeer, fight, gossip, slander, fill with misinformation, and genuinely make his shift all the more complicated.

With a phenomenally gripping beginning that braces audiences for a typical police procedural thriller, Saville ignores the limitations of the genre and like a magician from the school of experimental Aronofsky, uses sound in peculiar ways throughout, heightening the tension. Ultimately Noise’s narrative approach is less a traditional whodunit as a character driven, moodily atmospheric piece where eccentric locals abound and things are never as they appear in the spirit of John Sayles where the setting is both a clue and a character and it will undoubtedly play differently to audiences who live in other countries who—although admittedly entranced by its spell—may not fully understand the nuances that helped earn the film a remarkable twelve awards in its native Australia.

While the awards aren’t hard to imagine given the high quality of the film, this is especially apparent in the pitch perfect performances of both Brendan Cowell as he tries to resign himself to living with his disability and fight the wedge it threatens to divide in his relationship and work as well as young Maia Thomas’s emotionally wrought Lavinia, whom we learn in well placed flashbacks, may actually know more than she initially wanted to share for fear of her life from simply being in the wrong place at most decidedly the wrong time.

Although Noise will infuriate those hoping for a strict cop paradigm who will grow weary with the film’s continuous exercises in sound manipulation in creating an unforgettable dramatic effect and the end of the film is maddeningly vague-- inspiring viewer discussion long into the night-- perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the entire impressive film is that it only marks the second filmmaking and first feature length effort from its gifted and imaginative helmer Matthew Saville.

Exclusively available through Film Movement, Saville’s Noise is one sure to cause lots of conversational noise once you hit eject, however filmmaking students will want to hijack the disc, in order to study that opening, experimentally bravura sequence of tone establishment many times over, discovering what happens when all the post-production elemental tricks work together in nearly symphonic unison at the highest level to engage the audience.

Romulus, My Father

Director:

Richard Roxburgh

Shortly after young Rai (Kodi Smit-McPhee) begins noticing that women in his desolate town seem to be so struck by his exceedingly handsome father Romulus (Eric Bana) that they stare openly with smiles as bright as the Australian sun, a woman returns who had smiled at him decades earlier in World War II.

With the arrival of his restless mother Christina (Franka Potente) who-- as Romulus phrases it-- seems to come and go as if their home is a hotel, young Raimond Gaita begins to become acquainted with the indescribably intense and complicated relationship shared by his passionate, quiet Romanian father and beguiling German mother who’s always had more than just a wandering smile for masculine passersby.

Unable to be content in the hot desert with her husband and son, Christina has set up a second life in 1960 Melbourne, moving in with the brother of her husband’s best friend Hora (Marton Csokas). Instead of divorcing her for her frequent infidelities which we learn are nothing new, Romulus explains that he’s unable to turn his back on Christina whom he feels not only needs him but whose love affects him to such an extent that at times it’s driven him to suicidal actions. After such a stunt puts his father in the hospital once again, Rai starts getting bounced from one place to the next as he comes of age when staying with friends and family, all the while hoping that the catastrophic fire and gasoline relationship between his parents will somehow get resolved.

Sumptuously photographed by Geoffrey Simpson (Oscar and Lucinda, Under the Tuscan Sun), the film marks the directorial debut of Richard Roxburgh who, after seven years of labor on his pet project, finally saw playwright Nick Drake’s adaptation of Raimond Gaita’s memoir realized on the big screen. Winner of four Australian Film Institute honors including Best Picture and three richly deserved acting accolades for Bana (in his finest performance since Munich), Csokas, and McPhee, Roxburgh’s work is not only a remarkable achievement but also provides greater proof of Bana’s range with a turn that, while shy on dialogue, manages to convey planets of emotion in a few chosen reactions.

However, the film itself does frustrate viewers in its devastating second half, making us wish that greater detail had been transferred from Gaita’s book in reference to his parent’s courtship and background since we wonder just what had happened in the war to make them so mentally unstable. Despite this, it’s a lush, old-fashioned and impressive film that additionally benefits from extraordinarily magical touches of cinematic poetry such as the exquisite bookend of Romulus and Rai tending to bees that have fallen from a hive which echoes the healing bond of their relationship.