Winter of Our Dreams ** (1981, Judy Davis, Bryan Brown, Cathy Downes, Baz Luhrmann, Peter Mochrie) – Classic Movie Review 13,811

Judy Davis won the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Lead Role for her performance as a junkie-hooker in the 1981 Australian drama film Winter of our Dreams. 

Writer/ director John Duigan’s 1981 Australian drama film Winter of our Dreams stars Judy Davis and Bryan Brown. Davis won the AFI (Australian Film Institute) Award for Best Actress in a Lead Role for her performance in the film. 

It is a rather plodding, predictable and unrealistic tale of staid Sydney bookseller Rob (Bryan Brown) whose complacency is shattered by his relationship with Judy Davis’s rebellious peroxide junkie-hooker Lou, an old friend of his one-time girlfriend Lisa (Margie McCrae), whose suicide he is investigating.

The film’s attempts to address contemporary issues are clumsily self-conscious and the direction moves sluggishly throughout, though it does wrap up in an affecting ending. Despite the obvious talent of writer-director Duigan and star Brown, both of whom try to do earnest, solid work, only Davis really shines in this well-meaning, ill-judged folly.

Cast: Judy Davis as Lou, Bryan Brown as Rob, Cathy Downes as Gretel, Mercia Deane-Johns as Angela, Baz Luhrmann as Pete, Peter Mochrie as Tim, Mervyn Drake as Mick, Margie McCrae as Lisa Blaine, Joy Hruby as Marge, Kim Deacon as Michelle, Gia Carides, Caz Lederman as Jenny, Jan Adele as Woman, Virginia Duigan.

Judy Davis won the AFI Award for Best Actress for Winter of Our Dreams (1981) and Kangaroo (1986), and in 1981 also won the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Hoodwink (1981). High Tide (1987) is Judy Davis’s fourth AFI Award (Australian Film Institute) for acting.

After three weeks of rehearsals, there were five weeks of shooting in the inner-eastern localities of Kings Cross and Balmain, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Release date: 31 July 1981.

Running time: 89 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,811

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