As many of the other reviews suggest, if you have ever been a lefty or if your parents were lefties you will enjoy this film. You really do need to have some familiarity with the vocabulary of socialism in the 1930s and 40s to fully appreciate how good this film is. The German film "Goodbye Lenin!" (2003) touches the same sort of themes.So, anyway, the script well written, literate and just a bit edgy, the way Australian films often are. The back story is wonderful and is ably developed by Sam Neil, Judy Davis and F. Murray Abraham. To my eye the cast has given a back story a wonderful 1940s or 50s feel. Sam Neil is good, as always, and remind me of James Mason. Judy Davis is good the way she is always good and reminded me of Betty Davis. F. Murray Abraham's performance actually reminded me of Claude Raines.This film works on many levels and Richard Roxborough and Rachel Griffiths are very good but I as am more familiar with Russian communist dogma and American films from the 40s and 50s, I am sure I missed a lot when the film turned its attention to contemporary Australian politics and the civil service.I loved the way the "International" was used in the sound tack. Of course it had to be there but I really liked the way it was used here.

While Judy Davis and Sam Neill give their usual fine performances, the script is so weak that the entire film crashes. It's supposed to be a chronicle of a wild-eyed Communist who has sex with Stalin and gives birth to an extremist who enjoys being handcuffed. Sight gags (walking into a tree) and silliness (Stalin's successors act up like the three stooges at his death) provide the only comic relief from this dreary tale that seems to go on for hours.

I heard a lot of nice things about this little film : good surprise, funny comedy... Well I'd gave it a 6, not more. The acting is very good, that's maybe the best point. The storyline contains some good ideas, but the whole thing seemed to me a little weak, even a little boring : every detail is shown ten times for who didn't watch well, it's not far from the telletubbies tv show. I'd advise best a 1993 very funny (but also poetic) movie called "Not Everybody's Lucky Enough to Have Communist Parents" that has a similar character : the mother, who puts her politic engagement upper than anything.

...this is an extremely well-conceived, well-written, well-acted, and well-made film. The dialogue, in both its everyday scenarios and heated exchanges, is excellent; and the mockumentary style meshes perfectly with the nicely segmented, ever-twisting plot. Then, after making light of some serious history, the ending takes a dark, ironic turn to drive home its message that whatever political system you choose, the worst elements in human nature are here to stay...