The Love Letters from Teralba Road (1977)

We see right from the start that the marriage between “Len” (Bryan Brown) and “Barbara” (Kris McQuade) is a tempestuous one. Apparantly it's some dental toxicity (from fillings) that causes his tantrums, but even so he still likes to get tanked up then throw his fists around and so when he takes a job in Newcastle whilst she remains in Sydney, it gives her a chance to take stock. What is causing her to doubt what you’d think would be the obvious solution are his letters. As a man, he’s a bit of a beer-swilling loser. As a writer, he is charming and loving. The timbre of his almost daily notes to her are gentle, kind and longing - but can she forgive him? Does she really want to? What will she do if not? Her conversations with confidante “Maureen” (Gia Carides) show well how she vacillates on the subject. Meantime, he is living with his working class mother (Joy Hruby) and whilst trying to get himself relocated, she is adding her often quite contradictory tuppence-worth too. In many ways this looks like a documentary. It’s filmed hand-held a lot of the time and has extended periods without dialogue that rely on natural sound, bustling urban imagery and even a few bops around the bedroom to Leo Sayer and ABBA to let the complexities of topic sink in. What we don’t know is: what does she write in her replies? Does she encourage or discourage him? I liked the conclusion, it seemed to sum up this whole observation of their lives fittingly and though the acting itself isn’t much to write home about, it’s worth an hour of your time.