Force of Destiny – movie review

Director Paul Cox (My First Wife, Human Touch, Innocence) had a second chance at life when he received a liver transplant on Christmas Day 2009. The experience profoundly affected him and Force of Destiny, the first film in the new phase of his life, is in many ways an outpouring of his renewed love for humanity. With strong autobiographical components, it is a love story with a sumptuous aesthetic.

David Wenham (working with Cox for the first time since Molokai: The Story of Father Damien) stars as Robert, a renowned sculptor who is diagnosed with liver cancer. Estranged from his wife (Jacqueline McKenzie), but very close to his grown up puppeteer daughter (Hannah Fredericksen), Robert lives in a bush setting. While reeling from his bad news he meets Maya (Shahana Goswami), an Indian marine biologist who comes from a different world, a different reality. Robert’s nightmares and passion for Maya intensify as he confronts the agony and ecstasy of finding a love that has evaded him his entire life just as his body is about to be taken from him. New hope comes when he’s placed on the transplant waiting list, although time is not on his side.

Filmed in Melbourne and India, without wishing to sound sacrilegious, Force of Destiny seems to me to have been made as a tribute to the fact that Cox himself managed to pull through. In the first instance, the key character reflects upon his diagnosis, trying to come to terms with it by way of narration.

Then, throughout the picture he has visions, usually featuring doves and nature, which quickly served to drive me crazy. I felt the movie was being deliberately manipulative and it was far too obviously so. It was also mawkish. When a film is working for me I get lost in the characterisations and the events as they unfold. The storyline simply takes over. Here, the punches were constantly being signaled and the characters were strangely wooden or stereotyped.

So, you have the alienated wife clawing to express sympathy and ingratiate herself back into Robert’s life, the daughter and father constantly reaffirming their closeness and love. And that is not to forget the exotic foreign chick, purer than the driven snow that can do no wrong. Not unexpectedly, this necessitates scenes given over to Indian dancing and cultural enrichment.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I can only imagine how dramatically life would change if you were put into a position that Cox was and I appreciate diversity and artistic expression as much as the next guy. I have been to India three times and loved the experience and the people I met. But these things in and of themselves don’t make me like the movie any more. There’s too much given over to spiritualism in Force of Destiny, which becomes an east meets west experience and love in. Yes, I get the fact that in a situation such as that faced by Robert, it becomes a soulful journey of discovery.

Let me just say Kumbaya to you all and may the sweet bird of happiness find you and touch you. Now go forth with glad tidings.

Rated MA, Force of Destiny also features Kim Gyngell as Robert’s doctor and Terry Norris as his father. It is a film for selective tastes, really a telemovie at best, that scores a 5 out of 10.

Director: Paul Cox
Cast: David Wenham, Jacqueline McKenzie and Shahana Goswami
Release Date: 10 September 2015
Rating: MA 15+

Alex First