My grandad has been talking about this movie for 20 years - he is not a movie fan and he hates it whenever I start rambling, so this is a unique occurrence.
He saw it at my local arthouse and would often mention how it was still running at a cinema in Christchurch. The news site Stuff wrote an article about that particular phenomenon.
I finally found a DVD copy of the movie online, and ordered it for him for Christmas a couple of years ago. While he was happy to finally have it, he was more excited to have his family watch it.
The first half of the movie feels like classic melodrama - not great but familiar.
We start in the present before flashing back to the main action, watching the lovers meet and turn into a triangle.
It is well-acted and benefits from some good production design.
It is watchable, but still feels a tad too familiar.
But that familiarity is not a weakness. It is a sign of the film's sturdy construction.
And once the net starts to tighten and characters show their true colours, the movie becomes very compelling. The film's sense of melancholy gains new weight.
Not a classic, but one can see why something so functional has managed to maintain an audience.
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