The Price of Milk

At a time when most NZ movies would make good television (with budgets to match), The Price of Milk reasserts the glories of the giant screen: movie stars, true love & betrayal, a magnificent landscape and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra on the soundtrack

The Price of Milk, New Zealand, 2000

John Swimmer Productions
Director/screenplay: Harry Sinclair
Producer: Fiona Copland
Associate Producer: Juliette Veber
Executive producer: Tim Sanders
Associate producer: Juliette Veber
Photography: Leon Narbey
Editor: Cushla Dillon
Sound: Chris Burt
Production designer: Kirsty Cameron
Script consultant: Fran Walsh
1st Assistant director: Therese Mangos
2nd Assistant director: Hamish McFarlane
Makeup: Denise Kum
Embroidery: Saskia Leek
Dog Trainers: Mark Vette, Marie Manderson
Cattle wranglers: Andrew Rich, Keith Hamilton
Cow decorators: Craig Farmer, Lauren Sinclair

Music: Liadov, Tcherepnin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov - performed by The Moscow Symphony Orchestra

With: Danielle Cormack (Lucinda), Karl Urban (Rob), Willa O’Neill (Drosophila), Michael Lawrence (Bernie), Rangi Motu (Auntie), Lawrence Makoare, Chris Graham, Ray Bishop, Toi Iti, Bobby Tau, Luke Hiki, Michael Sweeney, Tahuna Minhinnick, Hiku Minhinnick, Karaka Taupo, Louis King, Wairere Iti (Nephews & additional golfers), Norman Forsey (Doctor), Jeram Bhana (Mr Bhana), Leila Dahya, Madhu G. Hari, Nirmala Uku (Bhana Sisters), Connor Nourse (Tiny Feet), Pirate (Nigel – the dog), Nikau Hindin, James Bull (Box Dog Doubles)

CinemaScope, 35mm, 87 minutes, M

“Director Harry Sinclair and actress Danielle Cormack leave Topless Women behind and head to the green, green grass south of the city. Cows outnumber people in The Price of Milk but Sinclair’s jangly mix of satiric scepticism and romantic whimsy needs no café culture to support it. Abetted by the resplendent CinemaScope cinematography of Leon Narbey, he has fashioned a visual rhapsody to the empty loveliness of dairy country – and peopled it with gorgeous oddballs who delight and perplex each other to distraction. The most down-to-earth character in this enchanted realm is the farmer Rob who, everybody agrees, is a very nice guy. He knows his cows by number and lets his agoraphobic dog run around encased in a cardboard carton. Rob lives in a euphoria of sexual hi-jinks with Lucinda, played with a twinkling insolence and crinkled golden tresses by Danielle Cormack. 
‘I liked the idea of fairy tale that starts where most fairy tales end,’ says Sinclair. The princess who’s fetched up with her handsome swain, Lucinda decides to find out what comes after ‘happily ever after’ and sets a test to prove the extent of Rob’s devotion. The ensuing pandemonium is exacerbated by the interference of Lucinda’s envious friend Drosophila and a witchy old woman who commands a gang of golf-club wielding retainers. Magic realism pops out all around him, and the improvised narrative of love-trial and counter-trial feels less then inexorable, but Karl Urban, lithe and sensual in blue overalls, stabilises the film in Rob’s basic good nature. In a movie-star turn to match Cormack’s spinning loveliness, Urban endows consternation with smouldering charisma. At a time when most New Zealand movies would make good television (and have budgets to match), The Price of Milk reasserts the glories of the giant screen: movie stars, true love and betrayal, a magnificent landscape and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra on the soundtrack.” — Bill Gosden, New Zealand Film Festival 2000

“A shaggy, appealing parable involving two lovers, some gorgeous heifers, gentle Maori gangster-golfers, and a dilapidated suitcase packed with used baby shoes, The Price of Milk throws itself onto the magic-realist sword with aplomb. The bewitching visuals float a gnarly fairy-tale plot. Lucinda, in an effort to spice up her too idyllic union with dairyman Rob, trades away his cows to get her stolen quilt back, thus triggering a succession of heavy romantic foibles, dream spurts, and odd graphic puns: A bathtub fills with Lucinda's tears in an open grazing field; a woman peers through a window while her true love walks in place, his heart braking him. The Price of Milk skirts cute by a hair's breadth—the only liability, really, is a floaty, rarefied musical score. Cormack, a frizzy, pneumatic spin on Bridget Fonda, mediates Price's madness; within the flaky landscapes beats a quilted and raggedy heart, and it's difficult not to be touched by Rob and Lucinda boomeranging back into each others' loving arms.” — Edward Crouse, Village Voice, 14 February 2001
“Part fantasy, part fable and all New Zealand quirkiness, The Price of Milk enchants with its eccentric, wandering chronicle of a young couple's romantic struggles and the inexplicable magic and mysticism that enfolds them… In a country of lush green hills, dairy farmer Rob (Lord of the Rings’ Karl Urban) loves his cows, his bubbly girlfriend Lucinda and his agoraphobic dog Nigel, who wanders around the farm within the secure confines of a cardboard box. Swept away by his ardor for Lucinda, Rob proposes, which sends Lucinda into a paroxysm of worry that their relationship must be going flat. Determined to discover who has stolen the couple's quilt (and their "security"), Lucinda is drawn into the strange goings-on of an old Maori woman and her numerous sons, who are enthused with Rob's cows. In a bid to retrieve the quilt, Lucinda barters away the thing she unknowingly values most – and Rob awakens to find his world gone awry as his precious cows have gone missing. The couple's only way back to each other then lies on a road twisting and turning with uncertain mystical possibilities.” — Luisa F. Ribeiro, www.boxoffice.com

Screenings: The Price of Milk screened on 14 & 15 September 2012; and on 12 March 2008 as part of the Big Sky: Empty Land selection of films.