Desperate Remedies

This stylishly over the top melodrama from directors Stewart Main and Peter Wells won major acclaim after debuting at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. In the imaginary 19th-century town of Hope, draper Dorothea Brooks (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) is desperate to save her sister (Lisa Chappell) from the clutches of opium, sex and the dastardly Fraser (Cliff Curtis). She begs a hunky migrant (Kevin Smith) to help; complications ensue. Inspired partly by 1930s and 40s Hollywood melodramas, Desperate Remedies was sumptously and deliriously shot by Leon Narbey (Whale Rider). Richard King writes about the film here.

[Jennifer] Ward-Lealand looks and acts like a cross between Greta Garbo in Queen Christina and Catherine Deneuve. Mr Curtis's Fraser suggests the 50's John Derek wearing too much makeup and a nipple ring. Old-time movie fans will delight in spotting dozens of other homages to an era when the notion that the girl might end up going off with the girl instead of with the boy was unimaginable...

– Reviewer Stephen Holden, in The New York Times, 23 May 1994

Key Cast & Crew

Leon Narbey

Cinematographer

Jennifer Ward-Lealand

As: Dorothea Brook

Stewart Main

Co-Director, Writer

Cliff Curtis

As: Fraser

Peter Wells

Co-Director, Writer

Lisa Chappell

As: Anne Cooper