PALM BEACH: How’s The Serenity?

When Gene Siskel would see a film he hated, he used to suggest that the filmmakers could’ve made a more interesting documentary with the same actors just having lunch together. This critical suggestion has practically been rendered into the real with Rachel Ward’s sophomore feature Palm Beach, which has a loaded cast of aging screen veterans shoot the breeze over one sunny weekend within the titular Sydney suburb.

Underneath the patio of Frank (Bryan Brown), unites the talents of Sam Neill, Greta Scacchi, Jacqueline McKenzie, Richard E Grant and Heather Mitchell, who play the former members (and partners of) The Pacific Sideburns, whose female lead singer has already passed away, but her voice still contributes to their cavalcade of conversations via the infrequent interludes of the band’s one hit wonder Fearless, which could best be described as Sublime‘s most chilled out B-Side.

Shooting the Breeze

Whilst their fame might’ve spurted out in the 80’s, it seems their fortune has not gone astray; Frank’s just sold his clothing business for a healthy chunk of change, Billy (Richard E Grant) is a middling jingle writer and Leo’s affluence (Sam Neill) seems to lie between his two budding bandmates. Reuniting for Frank’s birthday, it seems that each member of his visiting entourage has brought their own baggage to the weekend – alongside their packed bags.

Despite the amount of lit fuses that are ignited within each festive banquet that they call “lunch” (others would consider a rich buffet of sorts), Ward’s script, co-written by playwright Joanna Murray-Smith prefers to let sleeping dogs lie during each moment of contention; whether it’s Leo’s frank demands of who really fathered Frank’s spacey son Dan (Charlie Vickers), Billy’s seemingly illegal appropriation of ‘Fearless’ for an adult diaper commercial or even Frank’s reliance on anti-depressants in the wake of his newly-found retired life, are usually settled with a shrug than a shouting match.

Neither is Palm Beach concerned with the realities of only partly achieving your artistic dreams; what’s it like to live as a one-hit wonder? This longing, existential query is merely only grazed upon, their history as a band seems to only exist to explain away their obvious wealth and personal connection to each other – despite the hard work of Brown’s own son Joe, who designed the historic band posters that tell us more about the band than any of the character exchanges do (the disconnect between their punk aesthetics and the easy-listening grooves they produced is concerning tho).

It so often flirts with many topics; retired life, health scares, living in the shadow of your past victories, that it’s often frustrating when these are tossed aside for more soap opera-styled theatrics, which often imbalances the film’s general cheery atmosphere. Frank’s meltdown concerning a small chimney that barely obscures his stunning beach view is disconcerting at best, especially baffling when paired with Steppenwolf‘s “Born to Be Wild”, suggesting it’s a ‘bad-ass’ move to make, and not a desperate act of a frustrated senior.

An Actor’s Roundtable

Despite all this, this isn’t so much a film as it’s an opportunity to spend some quality time with some of our favourite actors; coming off his Oscar-nominated supporting role in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Richard E Grant once again reminds us of his inherently charming screen presence, whilst each of the primary actresses get their own moments to shine – it’s the film’s younger cast that get shortchanged in the whole ordeal.

Claire van der Boom, who plays the daughter of the band’s lost vocalist, is handed her own clumsy romance with a man whose personality doesn’t veer far from the brim of his unblemished cowboy hat. Dan, Frank’s son in the middle of the central drama, is merely used as emotional fodder for his surrounding elders – like a football tossed to each cast member, asked to make him the centre of their broadly-defined ‘arcs’, if any exist at all.

In the midst of all the little hiccups, one wonders why this wasn’t more of a Big Chill tribute, in terms of having the gang reunite due to the loss of their female singer. The celebration of Frank’s birthday seems arbitrary at best, and her role within the forgotten band seems just as disposable, despite the lingering presence of her musically-gifted daughter.

It’s perfectly fine to make a casual hangout film; Tea With the Dames was a feature-length documentary last year that literally had four acting dames – as the title implies – share tea together whilst discussing their different acting careers. What Palm Beach lacks is a sense of purpose – that despite it brimming with a number of winning personalities, it’s just a shame that the film they’re in lacks one itself.

Palm Beach: Conclusion

Rachel Ward’s follow-up to Beautiful Kate lends itself more to the work of Nancy Meyers and the HBO series Big Little Lies than anything else; probing the idyllic realms of white, affluent older people to unearth their interior inadequacies.

Palm Beach comes close to reaching similar levels of casual comforts that reruns of It’s Complicated or The Intern usually provide, but without a firm attachment to anything real – a believable reality, a firm plot or even properly fleshed out thematic intentions, the entire experience is just like a weekend spent on an Australian beachside – brisk and carefree.

Have you seen Palm Beach? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!

Palm Beach was released in Australian cinemas on August 8, 2019. Session times can be found here. For all international release dates, see here.