Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

The freshest, cheekiest, most engaging film from New Zealand in years.

Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, New Zealand, 1997

Director/writer: Harry Sinclair
Producers: Fiona Copland, Harry Sinclair
Editor: Cushla Dillon
Camera: Dale McCready
Music: Flying Nun Records – Straitjacket Fits, The Bats, The Clean and more
Sound design: Chris Burt

With: Danielle Cormack (Liz), Joel Tobeck (Neil), Ian Hughes (Ant), Willa O’Neill (Prue), Shimpal Lelisi (Mike), Andrew Binns (Geoff)

35mm, col, 90 minutes, R16–Contains offensive language and sex scenes

New Zealand Film Awards 1997: Best Film; Best Director; Best Screenplay; Best Actor (Joel Toebeck); Best Actress (Danielle Cormack); Best Editing; Best Supporting Actress (Willa O’Neill); Best Supporting Actor (Andrew Binns)

“The freshest, cheekiest, most engaging film from New Zealand in years.” —Paul Byrnes, Sydney Film Festival, 1997

Topless Women Talk About Their Lives is irreverent, ironic, funny and tragic. It’s the story of a group of dysfunctional friends and their encounters with the absurdities of contemporary life. It captures both humour and pathos in its web of interweaving storylines. There’s weirdness and normality, jealousy and friendship, depression and exhilaration, falling in and out of love, and a film within a film called Topless Women Talk About Their Lives.

“… it’s both very welcome and refreshing to finally have a great comedy we can laugh ourselves silly with, instead of at… Topless Women is inspired mayhem, a film so loose in its production yet so tight in its construction, that everything – character, story, mood, costume, design, photography – is virtually faultless. Made on the weekends over many months on next-to-no budget, with a largely inexperienced cast and crew, and written and improvised as they went along, it’s remarkable that a film got made at all, let alone a triumphant one…. Almost a case of letting the lunatics loose to see what happens, Topless Women is the first light-hearted New Zealand film which embraces our ‘New Zealandness’…. This is the most refreshing and unpretentious feature film New Zealand has ever produced, proving that a filmmaker in this country can make a contemporary comedy devoid of clichés, stereotypes or cultural cringe.” — Bernard McDonald, Pavement, August/September 1997

“With shrewd affection, a quick ear and eye for the mannerisms of the moment, and a wonderfully relaxed cast, Harry Sinclair has achieved what was beginning to look impossible in New Zealand movies: he’s made a smart, pacy, urban comedy that keeps you laughing about people you actually believe might exist. Topless Women is a comedy of romantic non-commitment; and beneath the repartee it’s as observant and rueful as any of them. A wannabe filmmaker bears the brunt of all the meanest jokes in Topless Women, but the sheer pleasure of running around Auckland (and Nuie), turning life into movies, is infectious in every frame.” — Bill Gosden, NZ Film Festival, 1997

“The sexiest woman in Auckland is pregnant, swelling before your eyes. Her clothes don’t fit, her lovers don’t fit, her life doesn’t fit; but Danielle Cormack is a perfect fit as Liz, in this intimate, outrageous comedy. Topless Women Talk About Their Lives is about, well, it’s about everything important. Geoff (Andrew Binns) can’t stay away from Liz, but he’s in love with another woman; Liz can’t get rid of Neil (Joel Tobeck), who’s in love with her and fathered her child; Ant (Ian Hughes) has written a screenplay (the film’s title) that’s so horrifically bad his friends insist it’s pure genius; and Prue (Willa O’Neill) and Mike (Shimpal Lelisi) are getting married. Writer/director Harry Sinclair has nailed the 20-something experience in this shoe-string production, shot all over Auckland and in Niue. Incredibly, each day’s script was written the night before it was shot, lending every scene an immediacy one rarely finds on the big screen. The hand held camera seems to be spying on real lives, not filming actors practicing their craft… this flick is an absolute must-see, destined to become a New Zealand classic.” — Veronica McLaughlin, Real Groove, August 1997.

“The story kicks off as Liz (Danielle Cormack) discovers she’s pregnant and a hapless scriptwriter, Ant (Ian Hughes), debuts his film about guess what... topless women. Problem is it’s awful and none of his friends can face telling him. Meanwhile, none of Liz’s boyfriends can face her once she starts swelling up, except Neil (Joel Tobeck) who refers to the foetus as ‘my little All Black’. Combining the urgency of a Gen-X coming-of-age flick with the joyous stupidity of Mel Brooks, and a healthy whack of Antipodean weirdness, Topless is urban, salty and in-your-face, like Shortland Street with spunk, like City Life with a brain and bodily functions... It all scrums down to a hilarious yet poignant climax, with much good sex, bad taste and nothing gratuitous or out of place.” — Matthew Bannister, Next

“If anything, the roughly shot flick, with its atmospherically punky soundtrack, is a little more heavily plotted than it needs to be. But in the areas of laughs and honest emotions, Topless Women is more satisfying than most movies – even the ones that cost something to make.” — Ken Eisner

Screenings: Topless Women Talk About Their Lives screened on 6 August 2008 and on 30 January 2005