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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 73380
Released: September 2, 2003 |
| Our Price: $4.98 |
| Used Price: $4.77 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This outrageous comedy won outstanding critical acclaim for its wild humor and award-winning cast of stars! After a mad, passionate fling on a whirlwind trip to Moscow, party girl Joan Fraser (Judy Davis -- ABSOLUTE POWER) returns home pregnant. And when little Joe is born, everyone wonders who "Daddy" is! Soon, the ball starts rolling on a hilarious sequence of events that includes a clueless husband (Academy Award(R)-winner Jeffrey Rush, Best Actor -- SHINE), a lovesick double agent (Sam Neill -- JURASSIC PARK), and even Joseph Stalin (Academy Award(R)-winner F. Murray Abraham, Best Actor -- AMADEUS). Get ready for nonstop laughs in the madcap, all-star comedy that takes a wild look at the ultimate party animals!
Description of Children of the Revolution:
Australia's most consistently fascinating export, Judy Davis has made a career of playing intriguingly high-strung women with a hilariously icy edge. Here, she plays the leader of Australia's Communist Party in the early 1950s whose struggles to keep the party alive are rewarded with a trip to Russia to meet Stalin himself (F. Murray Abraham). The meeting turns into a seduction, and she returns to Australia carrying Stalin's love child. So it's no surprise when her son Joe (Richard Roxburgh) grows up to be a political rabble-rouser, bringing the country to the brink of disaster. Filmed in mockumentary fashion by writer-director Peter Duncan, the film is never quite as funny as you wish it would be, but works as well as it does because of the performances by Rush and, particularly, Davis. --Marshall Fine
Children of the Revolution Reviews:
Cineam at its best! 
2008-09-09 - Sam Neil at his best. The writers should be comende for a great piece of political satire!
"I don't know, frankly, how we'll ever get the revolution going with 6 o'clock closing." 
2008-02-09 - 1996 Australian black comedy Children of the Revolution is one of those ideas that sounds better on paper than it plays on screen. It's the Cold War and Judy Davis is a hardline doctrinaire Communist oblivious to sad sack boyfriend Geoffrey Rush's attempts to win her hand because her heart belongs to Josef Stalin. When the dictator gets to see her letters - and more importantly her photo - he invites her to Moscow where a night of passion leaves him dead and her pregnant. Marrying Rush and raising the boy with her ideals (and a thing for getting arrested), he grows up to threaten a real revolution from within the system when he unionises both the Prison Service and the Police, but, as his mounting paranoia about his parentage as his office and his physique slowly merge into mirror images of Stalin, it's not quite the revolution she had in mind...
Boasting a good cast and Richard Roxburgh, who is surprisingly adequate for a change, it never really catches fire. The tone is never quite right, leaving some of the best ideas high and dry while too many moments like Beria and Kruschev providing backing vocals for F. Murray Abraham's Stalin's rendition of I Get a Kick Out of You show the actors struggling with scenes that they all-too-clearly know just aren't working. Even Sam Neill occasionally seems unsure of how far to go or hold back as a treble agent of no particular loyalty who may or may not be young Joe's real father but certainly is the one who killed Joe's wife's parents (and their entire village) on Stalin's orders. On the plus side it does offer a role that perfectly suits Judy Davis' traditionally unsympathetic one-note anger for once, though it's Geoffrey Rush who impresses the most, managing to create a character who is both funny and believably human amid the stereotypes. Nice try, but no cigar.
The best Aussie flick since Gallipoli
2004-01-23 - This wonderful, sparkling bubbly commentary is simply a masterpiece. Showing the exploits of a Communist mother and her suspecting son this movie is not only a commentary on COmmunism and the excess of liberalism but it is also a hilarious film with an amazing funny cast and a profound group of intrigue. The main character is followed through his life as he slowly realizes he is none other then the son of Stalin, the man his mother loves but who he learns to loathe. Yet as time goes on the viewer is led to wonder: Maybe in his rejection of his father he actually becomes him. Funny, great. Wonderful!!!!
The difference a moustache can make
2002-01-11 - This is an extremely original and well made farce. the film is generally comical but there are some tragic overtones throughout. The story of the idealist leader of the Australian communists earns a trip to meet Stalin in Moscow. The visit provides the setting for some of the funniest moments in the film. The idea of Stalin dancing and singing is funny in itself, imagine watching it realized on screen. But this comical interlude provides the crucial elemnt of the plot, the conception of Stalin's son. His identity is kept secret by his mother, but through a series of fortuitous circumstances Joe (thta's his name palyed by Roxburgh) becomes a union leader and organizes the police force. Hints are given throughout his childhood, he loves handcuffs for instance - leading to a steamy scene with a seduced policewoman. as a result of an 'accident' he has to grow a moustache and discovers his true personality after this event. There is sadness also, but I felt it beyond the plot or film itself. The mockery is certainly funny but it's undeniable that many idealists were betrayed by Stalin and his unbound evil. Communism in the Soviet union (and elsewhere) might have developed differently had Stalin not hijacked it. Now we're left with no alternatives and embarking on a dangerous course of increasing inequality. The film ironizes and does an excellent job (Judy Davis' excellent acting apart) of showing the demoralization of an idealist who has to face the sad reality and the poor 'loves' of the past. I saw the film twice and remember it with an ironic smile. Highly recommended
Wicked 
2000-07-21 - A real find. The film starts out as a broad satire (perhaps just a bit too broad), then sharpens to a steely point in the second half.Judy Davis has never been more ferocious (and that's really saying something). A romp, but one that leaves bruises. Grab it.
