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Mood:
- EmotionalGloomyUplifting
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Plot:
- Human SpiritDangerEscapadesHopesFriendsSurvivalFriendshipPrison Life
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Genres:
- DramaPeriodWar
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Time/Period:
- 20th Century30s40sWorld War 2
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Place:
- AsiaPrisonSingapore
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Based on:
- Based on True Story
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Attitudes:
- SeriousRealistic
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Flag:
- Violent Content
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Paradise Road, 1997
English, Japanese, Dutch, Malay
Australia, USA
Profile of Paradise Road
The mood of Paradise Road is uplifting, emotional, and gloomy. The plot centers around the human spirit, hopes, and friends. It is a drama, period, and war movie. In approach, Paradise Road is serious and realistic. It takes place, at least partly, in a prison. The setting is Singapore. Paradise Road happens in the 1930s. It is originally a true story. Note that it includes violent content.
Summary of Paradise Road
Based on a true story culled from hours of interviews by director Bruce Beresford, the film stars Glenn Close as British socialite Adrienne Pargiter. Alerted to the imminence of an invasion of Singapore in 1942, a group of the wives and children of Allied forces quickly crowd aboard a transport. When the ship is bombed, they end up on the island of Sumatra, where they are captured and imprisoned. Conditions in the camp are predictably brutal: food and medicine are difficult to come by, and the living quarters are squalid. One punishment requires a woman to kneel in the hot sun for hours only to fall on a sharp stake if she tires. Given the situation, Pargiter, who is also a musician, decides to organize the women into a vocal orchestra to help raise morale. Although they lack sheet music, Daisy (Pauline Collins), an Australian nurse, is able to re-create scores from memory. Among the reluctant women cajoled into singing are an Australian nurse, Susan McCarthy (Cate Blanchett); a cynical American, Topsy Merritt (Julianna Margulies); and a young British woman, Rosemary Leighton-Jones (Jennifer Ehle). At the first performance of Pargiter's orchestra, the Japanese guards are so moved by the music that they refuse an order to halt it. Close gives another of her typically strong performances.
Details
| Language: | English, Japanese, Dutch, Malay |
| Country: | Australia, USA |
| Release date: | 11 April 1997 |
| Runtime: | 122 min |
Cast and Crew
as Adrienne Pargiter
as Dr. Verstak
Photos
Clips
Critics Reviews
Los Angeles Times
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- by: Kenneth Turan
The New York Times
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- by: Stephen Holden
