Joe Cinque’s Consolation

When you make a movie about a factual and infamous crime, you can’t simply rely on a retelling of the story to provide tension and interest – most of the details are already known. Unfortunately, that’s what the writers of Joe Cinque’s Consolation have done – simply laid out the facts.

The film is adapted from the non-fiction book by Helen Garner and tells the incredible story of Anu Singh (Maggie Naouri), a law student with clear psychological issues who, after boasting about her intention to kill herself and take her boyfriend – Joe Cinque (Jerome Meyer) – with her, ends up killing only him. The events took place in Canberra in 1997 and involved a number of willing co-conspirators, most notably Anu’s best friend Madhavi Rao (Sacha Joseph) who has a sociopathic enthusiasm for Anu’s plan.

The writing is dull and renders the performances flat. Not only is it devoid of suspense, but you actually become impatient for Joe to finally die. There is little in the way of exploration of motive or examination of character. The most intriguing part of the film was the brief epilogue at the end summarising the legal proceedings, results and what’s happened since.

This may have been better as a courtroom drama. Worth watching if only for the fascinating details of the story. (RB)

★★1/2

BY RITA BRATOVICH