Institute History
Description
Geoff, 40pish, graying and leaving a failed marriage and three small children, returns to Australia after a 15-year stint as a journalist in America. By chance he meets Maureen, an old flame, who’s now married but childless. Old feelings are quickly rekindled and she suggests Geoff impregnate her. They retreat to a beautiful sea-side cottage to, as Geoff puts it “engender a potential taxpayer.” The arrangement is frustrating for both, but love eventually blossoms. The ending of the film, a coda one year later, is, however, bittersweet, with Maureen and her husband proudly showing off their baby to Geoff.
Unfinished Business is the directorial debut of film-screenwriter, Bob Ellis, who can also be seen in cameo as Geoff’s dead-pan roommate. It is an “adult” film, less in its subject matter than in its tone and lack of pretension. Witty, humane and surprisingly erotic, Unfinished Business won’t appeal to the younger set, but older audiences will find its humor and honesty refreshing.