I was willing to give this film a chance. I like Australian films, Guy Pearce, the accent, etc.,but when it started with a sequence showing the happy, singing orphans in China, grinning and swaying as they sing their way through their day's work at the clean, sunny state orphanage with private rooms, I knew I was in for trouble. It's not exactly propaganda, it's just freakin' unbelievable. But, then, eventually you can ignore the preposterous orphanage and watch the story unfold in the backstreets of Sydney. It turns out that the orphan's Australian sponsor is not in a good position to take her in, in spite of the fact that he somehow managed to funnel money to the orphanage for her upkeep for-what-ten years? Guy Pearce is a good actor, but his roll here is so downbeat that he's hard to watch. How did this guy last this long with so little resilience in his character? I guess it has to be that way so that all the resilience and determination can be larded onto the Chinese orphan. At any rate, she stands by him and is there at the end to nurse him back to health, although she seems to wind up doing it from some picturesque, beautifully-shot part of China. If you can accept that he can pluck her out of an orphanage 2,000 miles away, then she can support him from mainland China? Oh well. I guess the story doesn't have to make sense to be entertaining.
Review of 33 Postcards
