The Price of Milk

The Price of Milk (2000), written and directed by Harry Sinclair, is a film about love and magic, set in New Zealand farming country.

Danielle Cormack plays Lucinda, a beautiful young woman living on a dairy farm with her lover, Rob (Karl Urban). For reasons not totally clear, Lucinda takes the advice of her friend Drosophila (Willa O'Neill) and does some truly hateful things to determine whether Rob really loves her. (The friend's name is a joke--Drosophila is the Latin word for fruit fly.)

The film is very strange. Apparently, the actors and director hung out on the set and made up dialog and action as they went along. Maori characters appear and disappear, and one of them is a (sort of) kindly witch. This type of effort can be charming, but in this case it didn't work--at least not for me.

"The Price of Milk" had some definite strengths. Danielle Cormack is a sophisticated movie star, but she's able to convince us that she's a simple farm girl who enjoys taking a bath in milk. The scenery is lush and green. The movie is true to itself--it never steps back and says, "OK, now the magical part is over and we get real." There's an Indian wedding ceremony, and an agoraphobic dog that walks around covered by a carton. (How bad can a movie be when an agoraphobic dog is a member of the supporting cast?)

This movie is worth seeing if you run across it. I don't think it's worth seeking out. Incidentally, we saw this film on DVD. The New Zealand scenery would probably be even more beautiful on a large screen.