Miranda Nation takes a bold approach to pregnancy and abortion in her Geelong-shot film that evokes the work of Jane Campion

Film is an intensely collaborative art form, which is one of the reasons the auteur theory was established: to help navigate a sea of creative people dabbing away at their corner of the canvas. It is an effective way to define authorship and contextualise film history, though sometimes an artist comes along whose work is so strong in a non-directing role they seem to call into question auteurism’s very validity.

The Australian cinematographer Bonnie Elliott is one of them. Her compositions have a striking tendency to explore relationships between people and places. They have profoundly enhanced productions including Spear, Teenage Kicks, These Final Hours, TV’s Seven Types of Ambiguity and now Undertow – a Geelong-shot psychological drama premiering this week at the Melbourne international film festival.

Water is a key element, informing the film’s settings, visual motifs and the double meaning reflected in its title. It is an intensely gripping, female-led drama from the writer/director Miranda Nation, marking the second outstanding feature debut from an actor-cum-film-maker at the festival this year – the other being Acute Misfortune, Thomas M Wright’s biopic of the late Australian artist Adam Cullen.

Acute Misfortune first-look review – Adam Cullen biopic is an enthralling, complex triumph Read more

Undertow’s opening image moves from a running bath tap to protagonist Claire (Laura Gordon, recently in Hoges and Joe Cinque’s Consolation), who is nursing her pregnant belly. She will soon have a stillborn baby, which draws to the surface issues with her husband Dan (Rob Collins, from Cleverman). Much of the drama revolves around a melancholic truth which, though simple, isn’t easy subject matter to explore: that some women are desperate to give birth while others are devastated when they learn they are pregnant.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Undertow trailer.

While Nation presents those introductory images of Claire she cuts to a younger woman, Angie (Olivia DeJonge), partying with football player Brett (Josh Helman, who played the War Boy Slit in Mad Max: Fury Road). These two yet-to-meet characters will steer Undertow in increasingly interesting and unpredictable directions. Among the film’s surprises is an intensely thoughtful rumination on football culture, leading to questions not dissimilar to the kinds posed in Wright’s film about whether Australia puts the wrong kind of people on pedestals.

When Claire sees Dan leave a motel room where Angie is staying, she is convinced they are sleeping together and decides to surreptitiously follow the young woman rather than confront either of them directly. What could have been a who’s-sleeping-with-who, tangled-web-we-weave drama quickly evolves into something much more compelling as Nation blurs the line between thriller, psychological drama and character study.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angie (Olivia DeJonge) in Undertow, which is chock full of female talent above and below the line.

When Claire attends a group counselling session with Dan, she is struck by the highly unusual sight of small black crabs crawling across the floor. How did they get there? Could she be seeing things? It is the first obvious occasion on which Nation suggests what we are seeing might not be exactly real, or might be real but not exactly there – a vision plucked from another time or location, perhaps.

The director places a question mark over whether her film presents a “normal” view of reality. These thriller-like touches are never as important, however, as what her characters are thinking and how they are feeling.

Laura Gordon is a titanic presence as Claire: caring, creepy, strong, needy, obsessive, driven and yet directionless – a nuanced and thrilling performance that seems to be in a constant state of reinvention. Olivia DeJonge (who recently co-starred in the violently playful Christmas thriller Better Watch Out) is also excellent as a younger and naiver character, drawing a heady impression of strong but susceptible youth.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cleverman’s Rob Collins as Dan.

Australian cinema is shamefully light on productions like Undertow, chock full of female talent above and below the line. Stan’s recent feature The Second is one of few recent local releases to revolve around a female protagonist, though it was written, shot, scored, edited, designed and mostly produced by men.

The Second review – Rachael Blake ventures to dark places in steamy thriller Read more

Nation’s film is different: written, directed, starring, shot, co-scored, co-edited and co-produced by women, including producer Liz Watts, a driving force behind many productions including Animal Kingdom and Jasper Jones.

Undertow explores female-related themes in deeply interesting ways, unafraid to take bold approaches to topics such as pregnancy and abortion. The dramatic framework enveloping the characters shifts and snakes in all kinds of directions.

Undertow explores similar themes as the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s trippy 1966 masterpiece Persona (including the way it uses water to explore locations and evoke symbolism) and at its peak atmospherically evokes the work of Jane Campion. Images of a woman in fancy dress entering the ocean cannot help but look profound, though in Nation’s hands – and those of her terrific cinematographer – these moments are anything but surface deep.

• Undertow is in Australian cinemas now