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The Well

5.0

29

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Original title

The Well

Year

1998

Running time

102 min.

Country

Australia

Director

Samantha Lang

Screenwriter

Laura Jones. Novel: Elizabeth Jolley

Cast

Music

Stephen Rae

Cinematography

Mandy Walker

Producer

Southern Star Xanadu, Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC), New South Wales Film & Television Office

Genre

Horror. Thriller. Drama | Gay & Lesbian

Synopsis

Spinsterish Hester Harper hires young Katherine as help with her elderly father on her farm in the Australian Outback. A friendship soon grows between the prim, repressed Hester and the young, carefree Katherine, with Hester lavishing gifts upon Katherine. After Hester’s father dies, Katherine persuades her to sell most of the farm off. They start to spend up with reckless abandon, so carelessly that they simply keep the money from the sale of the land in old biscuit tins. While on their way back from a party, they run someone down on the road. With Katherine in hysterics, Hester throws the body down the well. They then find the dead person is a thief who robbed the house and that Hester has thrown all the money down the well with him. Katherine starts to go to pieces, insisting that the dead man down the well loves her and that he is going to come after Hester if she tries to stop them.

Awards: 1997: Cannes Film Festival: Official Selection

1997: 3 Australian Film Awards: including Best Actress (Rabe)

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Critics' reviews

"Beautifully creepy debut (...) Ms. Lang brings this puzzle to the screen with mathematical discipline and painterly emotion. She charges the smallest interactions with unbearable tension and knows how to induce panic by suggesting rather than showing."

A. O. Scott: The New York Times

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User history

The Well

1998

Samantha Lang

5.0

(29)