For Love Alone
– Christina Stead's novel For Love Alone was a best-seller in Australia, but remains essentially unkno..
Christina Stead's novel For Love Alone was a best-seller in Australia, but remains essentially unknown to the outside world. The same can be said for this 1986 film version, likewise a homegrown Australian product. Set in the 1930s, the film stars Helen Buhay as a starry-eyed young girl chafing under the oppressive attitudes of society in general and her father in particular. She kicks over the traces to enter into a romance with college Latin professor Hugo Weaving. Still not realizing that Weaving considers her a pleasant diversion and nothing more, Helen nearly misses out on a chance for happiness with liberal-minded banker Sam Neill. Once she's settled down with Neill, the idealistic Buhay is smitten by another aesthete, poet Huw Williams. Neill encourages this affair, hoping that Buhay will eventually realize that there's more to true love than mere sexual impulsiveness.
22 May 1986
English
Stephen Wallace
Christina Stead (novel), Stephen Wallace
Helen Buday, Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving, Huw Williams
A poor young woman in 1930's Australia falls in love with a dashing but arrogant teacher who preaches free love and watered down socialist precepts. She follows him to England, meeting a gentle banker en route. The film follows her relationships as they are transformed in England.
6 nominations.