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Australia, United Kingdom · 1994
Rated R · 1h 38m
Director John Duigan
Starring Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, Elle Macpherson
Genre Comedy, Drama
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In 1930s Australia, Anglican clergyman Anthony Campion and his wife Estella are asked to visit noted painter Norman Lindsay, whose work is considered blasphemous. While Campion and Lindsay debate, Estella finds herself drawn to the three beautiful models sitting for the painter's current work: freethinking Sheela, sensual Pru, and virginal Giddy.
Headily atmospheric, Duigan's film takes place in an outback of 'perpetual tumescence'. It's all very DH Lawrence, and consequently a mite predictable. The picture's strongest suit is Duigan's deft, witty touch, and the confident, classy playing (Grant's familiar stuttering Englishman notwithstanding). Duigan seems to lose his sense of irony entirely, however, when it comes to celebrating the standard soft-core coupling.
A deliciously sexy and hedonistic comedy of morals and manners, filmed amid some of Australia's most spectacular scenery. The blend of eroticism and humor, plus the formidable presence of supermodel Elle Macpherson, who is seen regularly in the buff in her featured role as an artist's model, will ensure wide interest in this engaging yarn from writer/director John Duigan.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
As a vehicle for examining the conflict between religion and artistic freedom, Sirens is shallow, and scenes concentrating on this issue dampen some of the lighthearted fun. Sometimes, it's better not to try for too much substance with such an earthy basic premise.
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
Sirens is best watched as a soft-core, high-minded daydream about the liberating sensuality of art. Its bubble tends to burst whenever the nymphs are asked to make clever dinner-table conversation, but the mood is nicely lulling anyhow.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
The charm, humor, and healthy eroticism of Australian writer-director John Duigan (The Year My Voice Broke, Flirting) are back in force in this pleasantly recounted tale, set in the 30s, about a newlywed Anglican clergyman and his wife, freshly played by Hugh Grant and Tara Fitzgerald, who stop off at the remote home of a controversial (i.e., erotic) painter (Sam Neill).
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
It’s a measure of the film’s middlebrow kitschiness that its centerpiece sequence turns out to be a tasteful soft-core version of the lesbian ravishment of Marilyn Chambers in "Behind the Green Door."
Los Angeles Times by Peter Rainer
Given the flimsiness of the material, why settle for D. H. Lawrence when you can have the Playboy Channel instead?
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The movie does indeed feature much footage of MacPherson and her sister sirens in the nude, but it is smarter, more thoughtful and more good-tempered than you might expect.
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