Ladies In Black * * * *

          Well I have to admit this really touched a soft spot with me.  When I was a lad, my first job was working in the snobbiest department store in town - where indeed the ladies wore black.  It was a great job.  I didn't even mind the suit and tie I had to wear.  I didn't realise it at the time but I was witnessing the end of the grand era of retail.  A time when the customer was unfailingly referred to as "Sir" and "Madam", as opposed to "Mate" (for Gods sake!). They taught me a lot about life. (Not so much about film reviewing unfortunately, but you've already figured that out).

No complaints here.

       Ladies in Black is set in Sydney in the late fifties, in an up-market fictional store called Goodes.  It's easy to spend time with these characters. It's a light and bubbly story, absent of deaths and calamities. In some respects you could almost call it twee. Yet it is a real pleasure to sit through.  The characters are so likable that you actually care about the minutiae of their lives. Like family and friends you're anxious to see that all works out well.
         Reflecting the period it is set in, it also deals with the new wave of immigrants from Europe that were arriving in Australia at that time with their funny accents and funny food choices and different ways. Weird stuff which we later learnt to be class and culture.
     Oh things are hopelessly idealised and romanticised but I sense the story is more interested in only showing the best side of people.  From a girl who wants to go to University (Why?! her father asks) to a man who leaves his wife because he is frighted of displaying his passion for her, to the matchmaking of an Hungarian war refugee and a lonely girl with a dark secret.
          The period is superbly recreated, even re-introducing the long gone Sydney trams. I'm glad that someone so empathetic as Bruce Beresford was chosen to direct this.  He's done a great job. A delightful film that I could happily view again.