Press release from Icon
South Solitary
A feature film by Shirley Barrett
Starring Miranda Otto, Marton Csokas, Rohan Nichol and Barry Otto
In Cinemas July 15, 2010
SYNOPSIS
The year is 1928, and the setting is South Solitary Island, off the coast of Tasmania – a remote lighthouse island, bleak, rainy and directly in the path of the Roaring Forties. Meredith Appleton, 33, arrives with her uncle, George Wadsworth, the replacement Head Keeper. She is a “chin up!” sort of girl, and she needs to be in these circumstances. The previous Head Keeper has shot himself. The light has a reputation for “going out” in the middle of the night. And to top it all off, they almost never see any actual ships – it seems, as a shipping route, going anywhere near South Solitary was long ago given up as a bad idea.
Meredith tries to make the best of a bad situation by attempting to make friends, but Assistant Keeper Stanley’s wife Alma – the only other woman on the island – is wary and unfriendly.
Assistant Keeper Fleet, a war veteran rumored to have deserted, is morose and withdrawn and – according to Alma – sees phantom distress flares when he’s up on his watch. The only bright spot in the whole picture is Assistant Keeper Stanley, who seems good-natured and jokey and cheerfully insolent towards authority – and who promptly sets himself the task of seducing the new Head Keeper’s niece, pretty much as a way of passing the time.
Meredith, sadly, is a pushover. Lonely and desperate for affection, resigned to looking after her crotchety Uncle for the rest of his life, it’s an unexpected and head-spinning experience to suddenly find herself an object of desire. Before long unfortunately their trysts are discovered and Stanley and his family depart the island and following the untimely demise of her uncle Meredith is now stuck on this isolated lump of rock with only the dismal Fleet for company.
South Solitary is a gentle comedy romance about the gradual coming together of Meredith and Fleet, two unhappy characters left alone on this wind-swept lighthouse island.
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