Playing God

Emily Browning's 5-star performance is riveting. She really brings out the qualities of the character, and outshines the better known actors/actresses in the show. Her performance reminds me of a young Anna Paquin or Kirsten Dunst. I predict a big future for this talented young actress.

Christie (Browning) has been charged with murder of a school friend, and Halifax (Rebecca Gibney) has to assess whether she is fit to stand trial. On the way to her decision she is confronted with a very intelligent, and very confused girl, who already seems to know all the answers, and is also hiding a terrible secret. As the layers are stripped away from Christie, Halifax discovers the terrible secret, and solves a long lost murder mystery.

Halifax FP is an OK series, featuring our own (New Zealand born) very pretty Rebecca Gibney in the lead role. The early episodes - as a I recall them now some years later - were probably the strongest.

I saw this particular episode some two to three years ago. The performance by Emily Browning was a revelation! It is rare that I remember any actor's or actress's name, but Emily's was burned into my brain by her unbelievably mature and insightful portrayal. She shone, and frankly ran rings around our (sadly well outclassed) star of the show.

I was pleased, and not at all surprised, when I heard last year she'd won the role in Lemony Snickett. I'm not surprised - as I just learned - her interests include literature, philosophy and psychology (imdb bio). I hope she continues to bring her special insights to her acting, and that she will be seen, internationally, for a long time to come.

The world will certainly be the richer for it.

The town of "WoodVale" (although the name of a region in Victoria) was actually filmed in the town of Trentham. Trentham is a picturesque town in regional Victoria. I had a chance to visit this town before the fires that devastated Victoria, and it was all there. The corner store, the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Seems like nothing has changed. It was a funny sense, because the film captured a sequence of Jane Halifax walking down the main street as an outside to be stared at in the way that a stranger gets stared at. I got the same reaction as a Chinese visitor to the town. Anyway, my comment... The directors and screenwriters captured the sense of a small country town perfectly.

This episode of "Halifax f.p." is the first I have seen and I was very impressed by the performance of the beautiful teenage actress Emily Browning! I hope that she will have a good career in her future... Otherwise, this TV serie is not really original but well-done and it was a good evening for me! It reminds me some TV series I saw in my country (France) like "Julie Lescaut" or things like that... But I didn't really enjoy the lighting (like in most of the TV series!). Nevertheless the story was not so politically correct as the TV series in general!... To conclude I want to congratulate another time Emily Browning who I hope to see more!...