Review: The Second

If the writer's edict is to "write what you know," then The Writer (Rachael Blake) in the Australian mystery drama, The Second, may have quite a bit to account for.

The daughter of a successful, recently departed novelist, she has always lived in her father's shadow until the publication of her debut novel. However, writing a follow-up to her erotic memoir proves no easy task. She and her publisher and lover The Publisher (Vince Colosimo) retreat to her family's sprawling country estate to hunker down for a week and focus on her second novel, which concerns the murder of a local boy.

From the jump, director Mairi Cameron foments a calm menace, from the roadkill that the couple pass on the way to the estate to The Writer's father's study with its portraits of menacing birds and into which people are forbidden to enter. Then there is the appearance of The Muse (Susie Porter), The Writer's childhood friend whom she describes as a "seductive and devious liar" to her lover. Indeed, The Muse is a destabilising presence, draped in leather, a twinkle of trouble in her eye, and blithely free in spirit where The Writer is possessed of a more reserved chill.

Initially, it seems that viewers are being set up for a sinister ménage à trois, but screenwriter Stephen Lance has something else in mind, specifically how slippery and unreliable a narrative can be. Much like François Ozon's Swimming Pool, The Second traffics in blurring the lines between the fiction that The Writer is creating from the actual reality.

Though this tactic can make for slightly frustrating viewing and Lance throws in one literary allusion too many, Cameron crafts enough intrigue and the actors play their parts so well that it's hard to begrudge The Second its flaws. The marriage of Basic Instinct-style pulp and tony literariness doesn't always gel, but Lance and Cameron do well in their exploration of how damaged survivors attempt to reclaim their power by controlling the narrative.

The Second

Directed by: Mairi Cameron

Written by: Stephen Lance

Starring: Rachael Blake, Susie Porter, Vince Colosimo, Martin Sacks, Susan Prior, Megan Dale, Bridget Webb