The sum of the feelings

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Movie
German title The sum of the feelings
Original title The Sum of Us
Country of production Australia
original language English
Publishing year 1994
length 100 minutes
Rod
Director Geoff Burton
Kevin Dowling
script David Stevens
production Hal McElroy
Errol Sullivan
music Dave Faulkner
camera Geoff Burton
cut Frans Vandenburg
occupation

The sum of feelings (German alternative title: Immer Ärger mit der Liebe, English: The Sum of Us ) is an Australian tragic comedy from 1994. The film is based on the play of the same name by David Stevens from 1990.

action

Widowed Harry Mitchell, the captain of a tourist ship in Sydney, Australia, and his grown son Jeff, a rugby-playing plumber, live together in a two-man household.

Jeff is homosexual, which his father knows, but not his buddies at the sports club. Harry tries to meet a new woman through a partner agency. Jeff met the gardener Greg in a gay pub and they both fell in love. Through the agency, Harry meets the single mother of an almost adult daughter, Joyce Johnson . The two get so close that they consider getting married.

Father Harry gets along very well with Greg right away, while there is strong tension between Joyce and Jeff, as Joyce has a very conservative attitude towards homosexuality .

Harry suffers a stroke and is paralyzed and mute after that attack. Joyce then breaks up with Harry. Jeff cannot and does not want to leave his father in need of care alone. Greg has swam free in the meantime, can now stand up to his own parents and publicly about his homosexuality and would love to be with Jeff.

The latter is now in a conflict of objectives between the love of the son for his father and the love for his friend. He decides not to leave the father alone. Nevertheless, there is a rapprochement between Jeff and Greg.

The film ends with the conciliatory prospect that there is a future for the three in which no one has to stand back completely.

background

  • The subtext of the story goes beyond the homosexual theme and tells a story about the family ties of three generations, the grandmother, the father and the son. The translation, The Sum of Feelings, is free and has a precise intradiegetic equivalent: The Sum of Us quotes the statement of Harry, Jeff's father, who at one point says: Our children are only the sum of us. I mean: Us, our parents, our grandparents. All generations ("Our children are the sum of everything we are ourselves. I mean: ours, our parents, our grandparents. All generations.").

criticism

The lexicon of international films thinks it is a "poor-hearted film about a father-son relationship, the focus of which is tolerance."

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The sum of feelings. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 16, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used