Desperate Remedies

Auckland film makers Stewart Main and Peter Wells are sassily opposed to the realistic tradition in New Zealand filmmaking. In Desperate Remedies they strike back with rampant, operatic artifice.

Desperate Remedies, New Zealand, 1993

Directors/screenplay: Stewart Main & Peter Wells
Production co: James Wallace Productions
Producer: James Wallace
Associate producer: Trishia Downie
Cinematography: Leon Narbey
Camera operator: John Day
Editor: David Coulson
Music: Peter Scholes
Costumes: Glenis Foster
Designer: Michael Kane
Art direction: Shane Radford

With: Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Dorothea Brook), Kevin Smith (Lawrence Hayes), Lisa Chappell (Anne Cooper), Cliff Curtis (Fraser), Michael Hurst (William Poyser), Kiri Mills (Rose), Bridget Armstrong (Mary Anne), Timothy Raby (Mr Weedle)

35mm, colour, 92 mintues, M—Contains sex scenes

watch the Desperate Remedies trailer (2.1MB; 1.37minutes)

NZ Film & Television Awards 1994: Best Cinematography (Leon Narbey), Best male performance in a supporting role (Cliff Curtis), Best design (Mike Kane), Best contribution to design (Glenis Foster, Costume design)

“Auckland filmmakers Stewart Main and Peter Wells are sassily opposed to the realistic tradition in New Zealand filmmaking. In Desperate Remedies they strike back with rampant, operatic artifice. Jennifer Ward-Lealand has the prima role. In the colonial port of Hope, drapery is her business. Total control on the hoof is her modus operandi. She rushes across sets which resemble an eye-popping, Victorian-themed nightclub, her every entrance anticipated by a Verdi accelerando and a gust of wind to throw open the portals. She schemes to separate her opium-addled, sexpot sister from the lewd, addictively decadent Prince impersonator, Fraser. She rides down to the docks in a chariot (jet-propelled by Peter Scholes’ exhilarating, Force of Destiny-laden score). She engages there the assistance of Lawrence, a penniless out-of-work hunk with a shady past and a fetching pout. Has this Boadicea met her match? Will the hireling’s persistent smoulder melt her sang froid? Meanwhile Anne, her dark, enigmatic confidante and companion, hatches schemes of her own…” — Bill Gosden, New Zealand Film Festivals, 1993

“Desperate Remedies often feels a little like a soap opera, with its long glances, pregnant pauses and romantic morality. But this is Dynasty shot on the set of Coppola’s Dracula, or an episode of Poldark re-imagined by Peter Greenaway, a director with whom Main and Wells share a rare ability to be comic and threatening at the same time. For although, with its knowingly camp atmosphere and cartoon angles, Desperate Remedies is a titillating good time, there’s an undertow of things rather more serious hinted at throughout the film. As the emotionally troubled Dorothea, Jennifer Ward-Lealand finally delivers on her earlier promise. Resplendent in violent red (to co-ordinate with the Michael Kane’s incredible sets) she is the film’s heart, and carries it easily. Hunk Kevin Smith puts his pecs to good use, Cliff Curtis hams it up as the dandy Fraser, Lisa Chappell is suitably restrained and sexy as Anne, and sharp cameos from Bridget Armstrong and Timothy Raby mean the sometimes free-wheeling script is in good hands. But it’s as the scheming William Poyser that Michael Hurst finally gets a big screen role large enough for his ability. Compared to other films, Desperate Remedies is a fanciful confection with more than a little bite. When you take into account that it was produced on a minuscule budget with a fast shooting schedule, it is an out and out triumph. Note: Desperate Remedies’ high point is its music. Peter Scholes’ dramatic, practically non-stop score (played by the Auckland Philharmonia) grabs you from the opening titles and never lets up… Simply the best music ever composed for a New Zealand film, no question.” — Mark Tierney, Listener, 11 September 1993

“This bawdy New Zealand melodrama boasts lusty dialogue, wild costumes and the strangest of plots. A beautiful businesswoman schemes to save her opium-addicted sister by paying a hunky immigrant (luscious Kevin Smith) to marry her. But best-laid plans look doomed thanks to unpredictable emotions and desires. Sumptuous and saucy.” — Bite, January 1994

Screenings: Desperate Remedies has screened on 6 March 2005 as part of a season selected by film reviewer and Archive Board member Mike Nicolaidi; on 19 October 2005 in a season by writer/director Michael Bennett featuring actors behind and in front of the camera (in this case Cliff Curtis, whose directorial debut The Rocks also screened); on 10 May 2006 in the season First Steps chosen by Film Archive CEO Frank Stark; and on 23 May 2007 to honour Arts Foundation Laureate Michael Hurst in the Laureates season. Asked about his selection Mike Nicolaidi replied Stuart Main and Peter Wells’ Desperate Remedies caused me to alternately blush and fall-about at its premiere in the Embassy. Our Aussie neighbours’ Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, made much later, comes way behind in the mysteries, subtleties, seriousness’s – and fun – of gay melodrama.