Jack Be Nimble [Blu-ray]

Overview

Alternating between urban affluence and rural squalor in its New Zealand setting, this contemporary update of the Brothers Grimm tells the story of a boy and his sister whose placement into very different adoptive homes can't destroy the psychic bond that connects them. An impressionistic opening scene suggests that Jack and Dora's mother has gone off her rocker; soon, the children are packed off to an orphanage, where Dora is adopted by the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Birch (Brenda Simmons and Gilbert Goldie) and Jack falls into the hands of grim farmer Clarrie (Tony Barry) and his bottled-up wife Bernice (Elizabeth Hawthorne). Years later, the teen-aged Jack (Alexis Arquette) suffers through continuing abuse from his proud, sardonic parents and their quartet of vacant-eyed, black-clad daughters. Using an invention that helps focus his nascent hypnotic powers, the lad unleashes his revenge on the family and sets off to find his real sister. Dora Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, meanwhile, has grown up within the comforts of a middle-class home but can't escape her outsider status -- or her special powers, which allow her to sense not only Jack's presence, but also the voices of the dead. With the help of Teddy (Bruno Lawrence), an older telepathic man who wants to bed her, Dora finally finds her way to Jack. But his unhappy childhood has already inflicted too much damage, poisoning the siblings' hopes of a joyful reunion with their birth parents and setting the stage for the savage vengeance of Jack's stepsisters. Garth Maxwell, who previously directed the award-winning gay short Beyond Gravity, made his feature debut with Jack Be Nimble.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/30/2022
UPC:	0688187004266
Original Release:	1993
Rating:	NR
Source:	Altered Innocence
Language:	English
Time:	1:36:00
Sales rank:	40,231

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Alexis Arquette	Jack
Sarah Smuts-Kennedy	Dora
Bruno Lawrence	Teddy
Tony Barry	Clarrie
Elizabeth Hawthorne	Bernice
Brenda Simmons	Mrs. Birch
Gilbert Goldie	Birch
Tricia Phillips	Anne,Anne
Paul Minifie	Kevin
Sam Smith	Little Jack
Hannah Jessop	Little Dora,Dora (age 8)
Nicholas Antwis	Jack (age 7)
Kristen Seth	1st Older Sister
Amber Woolston	2nd Older Sister
Tracey Brown	3rd Older Sister
Wendy Adams	4th Older Sister
Nina Lopez	1st Middle Sister
Beth Morrison	2nd Middle Sister,4th Middle Sister/3rd Younger Sister,1st Younger Sister
Ella Brasella	3rd Middle Sister/4th Younger Sister
Victoria Spence	2nd Younger Sister
Ricky Plester	Young Sean
Rohan Stace	Sean
Bridget Armstrong	Mrs. Spurgeon
Bridget Donovan	Carlene
Caroline Lowry	Trish
Paula Jones	Tina
Rebekah Mercer	Schoolgirl
Shannon Grey	Schoolgirl
Tina Frantzen	1st Matron
Vicky Haughton	2nd Matron
Helen Medlyn	Orphanage Nurse
Grant McFarland	Metalwork Teacher
Celia Nicholson	Motel Woman
Chris Auchinvole	Gordon
Peter Bell	Thief
Kaash	1st Taxi Driver
Eric Williams	2nd Taxi Driver
Erik Williams	Taxi Driver
Chris Neal	Composer

Technical Credits

Garth Maxwell

Rex Pilgrim

Garth Maxwell	Director,Screenwriter
John Barnett	Executive Producer
Peter Bell	Stunts
Kevin Chisnall	Special Effects
Jonathan Dowling	Producer
Murray Newey	Executive Producer
Kelly Rogers	Producer
Rex Pilgrim	Screenwriter
Kelly Rodgers	Producer

Editorial Reviews

This dark little fairy tale packs plenty of ideas and lots of gorgeously disturbing images into 90 modestly budgeted, nouveau gothic minutes. Alexis Arquette takes a welcome break from his more flamboyant roles as the seethingly alienated title character, while Sarah Smuts-Kennedy recalls Cate Blanchett in the mixture of fragility and steeliness she brings to her role as Jack's sweet but tortured sister Dora. The entire ensemble shines, from Brenda Simmons as Dora's blind, defeated, conscience-plagued adoptive mother to the many, many actresses who play Jack's stepsisters at various ages. It's Jackie Gilmore's art direction and Donald Duncan's cinematography, however, that transform the film from a fantasy melodrama into a memorable fable. Their moody visuals and sordidly magical realist tone perfectly complement the high-pitched script, which was co-written by first-time feature director Garth Maxwell. From the fabulously baroque contraption Jack builds out of metal scraps and uses to hypnotize his tormentors to the sight of his wicked stepsiblings stalking the back roads of New Zealand in an antique truck like some mytho-industrial monster, Jack Be Nimble reinvigorates gothic stereotypes with an inventiveness that never strays into postmodern pastiche. Superior sound editing brings the horror of Dora's telepathy to life with a torrent of babbling voices that provide a disturbing counterpoint to the film's stark tableaux. From its Season of the Witch-esque opening montage to the languid coda that brings things to a hopeful close, Jack Be Nimble is one genre exercise whose low budget doesn't translate into a paucity of memorable ideas, characters, images, or sounds.

All Movie Guide - Brian J. Dillard