I AM YOU



Australia, 2009, 100 minutes, Colour.
Ruth Bradley, Guy Pearce, Miranda Otto, Sam Neill, Khan Chittenden, Kate Bell, Jeremy Sims, Steve Vidler, Diane Craig, Rebecca Gibney.
Directed by Simone North.

I Am you is an Australian story based on fact. It concerns the Barber family, living in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. One night, expecting their daughter to come home on time as promised, she doesn’t and the parents contact the police, concentrating their search for their daughter, almost harassing the police, especially the mother and her overwrought emotion.

The film includes a number of flashbacks, especially to four years earlier, Rachel and her place in the family, her relationship with Manny. Kate Bell and Khan Chittenden portray Rachel and Manny.

The film is divided into chapters with headings for the different characters. While the film narrative goes forward with the search for the missing girl, it also has the narrative of Caroline Reed, a girl with mental and physical health problems, conscious of her leads ugliness and fatness, trying to please her father and becoming more and more preoccupied with Rachel, leading to her killing her. The scene of the murder is particularly grim, in its physicality as well as the emotional aftermath for Caroline.

Ruth Bradley is very good and persuasive as Caroline.

Guy Pearce as Rachel’s father is a more interior man, suffering, especially at the end in the bedroom, supportive of his wife who is far more outgoing and impulsively emotional as well as demanding on the police. She is played by Miranda Otto. The main police officer is played by Jeremy Sims. Sam Neill is Caroline’s father.

The film was written and directed by Simone North, a writer and producer for television.

1. The film based on a true story? A Melbourne story? The 1990s? Ordinary people? Madness and violence?

2. The Melbourne locations, the details, the trama, the cars, the streets, Richmond, the homes, the police stations, flats, the hospital, the sense of realism? The musical score?

3. The title, Caroline’s saying it to the mirror image of Rachel? In her skin and its reference to Caroline identifying with Rachel?

4. The strong cast?

5. The settings of the 1990s, Melbourne, homes, streets, a sense of period?

6. The structure of the film: the opening, the drive through the countryside, Caroline silhouetted on the hill, reprising this at the end of the film? The chapters, the names of the characters? The impact of the disturbing sequence of the murder and its aftermath?

7. The narrative of Rachel: dancing with Manny, the sexual encounter with Manny, her life, 15, her friends, relationships, her believing Caroline, going to do the job, her death? Imagining herself with Manny as she died?

8. The narrative of Caroline: background, illness, and epilepsy, mental disturbance, antagonism towards her mother, her dependence on her father, wanting to be good enough for him, her negative esteem? Her job, people assisting her in the office, appointments for the doctor, her friend Mary and the phone chats? Her obsession with Rachel, the plan, the discussion about the project, promise of clothes, money, persuading her to come, Rachel’s naivete, Caroline and the phone call to her father, getting Rachel to close her eyes, the weapon, strangling her, the long time, the physical effort, Rachel not dying instantly, on the floor, Caroline on her, trying to kill her? Covering Rachel’s body? Stabbing her? Leaving her in the bath? The later scenes of burial?

9. The narrative of the parents: Mike and his being rather quiet, anxious, internal suffering, supporting his wife? His wife, becoming overwrought instantly, the phone calls, pressure on the police, going to the police, day after day, the police and their wariness of her? Her criticisms, demands, emotions? The officer saying that they had devoted resources to the search for Rachel?

10. The narrative of the police: contacts, assuming that the girl was a runaway, the need for more time, talking to the parents, not reassuring them, the parents and their attack, threatening to go to the media?

11. The narrative of the media: the articles, the photos, the expert in finding people, approaching the parents, at his office, the reaction of his boss, the contact with the police, information about the mobile phone and the location, the information about Caroline, going to her house, the attempt to get in, finding her on the floor? To the hospital? The police guard? Her final confession?

12. Caroline and her background, neighbour at Mont Albert, her project on Rachel when she was young, her dependence on her father, mental condition, her imagination, cajoling Rachel, her treatment, the killing, her happiness, her profound scream? Going back to work, phoning the railways? Her appointments? The mirror image of Rachel? The narrowing of the police search, her offering to help, the phone calls to the family, her fear, hospital, her father’s visit, persuading her to tell the truth?

13. The effect on the parents, the various glimpses of them, with their children, the bedroom and the bed? Their having to accept the fact? Perhaps not wanting to know, but it being better for them?

14. The funeral, the family gathered around the coffin?

15. The sequence of the burial of the body, Caroline at the farm, in the countryside?

16. The family, the media, their acceptance? Caroline, going to prison, the information about her in prison, and the possibility of parole in 2013?