The Club

A film set in Australia. There is a football club. Australian rules is played and the club is in Melbourne. The season is going badly. The team is losing and the supporters are grumbling. The club has a committee. Its president, Ted, is a former player. The coach Laurie is a former player too. The club's greatest name, and he never won a premiership. The committee wants him out. From there the film is a story of rooms. Meetings, telephone calls, conversations in corridors and business done behind backs. There is a new signing as well. Geoff was bought for a great deal of money and does nothing on the field. He does not come to training and he drinks. The club administrator Gerry speaks separately to every side. He tells each of them something different. A scandal breaks. An incident involving the president reaches the press. That changes who holds the power. What the narrative is interested in is not football but an institution: its idea is that a club is run not by the game on the field but by the bargaining in its rooms, and that nobody talks about the game. A match is barely shown. The narrative does not go onto the field. Everyone says they love the club. Everyone works for themselves. The source is David Williamson's play; he wrote the screenplay himself. The structure shows it. Long speeches, one location, entrances and exits. The film looks directly at Australian football culture and was much argued over at the time. Bruce Beresford made one of his last Australian films here; he moved to America afterwards. Jack Thompson, Graham Kennedy, Frank Wilson and John Howard are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Australian cinema and stage adaptations. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a football film; the narrative takes place almost entirely in rooms and the sport is a background.