A Little Bit of Soul Reviews

Could it be... Satan? That question drives this peculiar, low-budget sex farce with political overtones from Australian writer/director/producer Peter Duncan. Unlucky-in-love geneticist Richard Shorkinghorn (David Wenham), a shy fellow who lost his girlfriend/research assistant to a professional fortune teller and isn't quite over it yet, is seeking a cure for the rare congenital disorder progeria, which causes children to age at a grotesquely accelerated pace. His research generates little excitement in the scientific community, and Shorkingham despairs of getting a grant that will allow him to continue his work. Then he receives a call from Grace Michael (Heather Mitchell), head of the Michael Foundation and wife of Finance Minister Godfrey Usher (Geoffrey Rush). Invited to the wealthy couple's home for the weekend, Shorkingham is shocked to find that he's competing for grant money with his ex, Kate Haslett (Frances O'Connor), who's doing exactly the same kind of research. Worse still, the older couple seem to have kinky sexual designs on both young scientists and are hiding a deeper secret as well: They're unrepentant Devil worshippers. And there's more.... One thing of which no one can accuse Duncan is skimping on plot; his previous film, CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION, was an equally hard-to-get-a-grip-on film that conjured a parallel-universe Australia in thrall to the illegitimate son of Joseph Stalin. On the plus side, Frances O'Connor is a delight (imagine Parker Posey crossed with Jessica Harper) and the movie's dialogue is often quite clever, ripe with brittle potshots at academic pretension, back-biting scientists, courtroom theatrics and the petty problems of bourgeois Satanists. Unfortunately, the entertaining bits don't really add up to a satisfying whole: You may find yourself at the end shaking your head and wondering exactly what all that was about.