Tim **** (1979, Piper Laurie, Mel Gibson, Alwyn Kurts, Pat Evison) – Classic Movie Review 7,334

The 1979 Australian romantic drama Tim is a sweet and lovely film, telling a simple, heart-warming love story, based on Colleen (The Thorn Birds) McCullough’s novel. It stars Piper Laurie and Mel Gibson, both of them remarkably good. 

Writer/ producer/ director Michael Pate’s 1979 Australian romantic drama Tim is a sweet and lovely film, telling a simple, heart-warming love story, based on Colleen (The Thorn Birds) McCullough’s 1974 novel. As advertised, it is the tale of an ‘impossible love story come true’.

Mel Gibson (aged 22) in only his second movie, following Mad Max, is fresh, handsome and charming, giving a subtle, persuasive performance as 24-year-old builder’s labourer Tim Melville, the slow-witted gardener of below average intelligence (insensitively you could call this ‘borderline mentally handicapped’, or more sensitively ‘developmentally impaired’) taken on to work around her yard by a lonely older woman, Mary Horton (Piper Laurie), an educated and wealthy American.

Tim lives with his year-older sister Dawnie (Deborah Kennedy) and their parents Ron and Em (Alwyn Kurts and Pat Evison). Dawnie marries Mick Harrington (David Foster), both of them opposed to Mary and her relationship with Tim.

The young Gibson is tremendously appealing but the far more experienced Laurie is on her best form and grabs her opportunity full on.

She alleged in her 2011 autobiography Learning to Live Out Loud that she grabbed another opportunity during shooting when she and Gibson enjoyed a one-night stand.

The stars are the making of the movie, but there also fine support performances from the Australian cast, especially Alwyn Kurts and Pat Evison as Gibson’s parents Ron and Em.

Also in the cast are Peter Gwynne, Michael Caulfield, Margo Lee, and James Condon.

I first wrote about in back in 1984 when it appeared on UK TV on BBC2.

Michael Pate read the book in 1975, optioned the screen rights, wrote the screenplay, and decided to make it his directorial debut.

Filming took six weeks in August and September 1978. It is funded by the Australian Film Commission, the NSW Film Corporation, Greater Union and Channel Nine.

It premiered on 13 July 1979 at GUO’s Russell Cinemas, Melbourne, and was released in Sydney on 21 September 1979. It was eventually released in the US on 17 September 1981.

At the 21st Australian Film Institute Awards Gibson won for Best Actor, and Kurts and Evison won for Best Supporting Actor and Actress.

The cast are Piper Laurie as Mary Horton, Mel Gibson as Tim Melville, Alwyn Kurts as Ron Melville, Pat Evison as Em Melville, Peter Gwynne as Tom Ainsley, Deborah Kennedy as Dawnie Melville, David Foster as Mick Harrington, Michael Caulfield as John Martinson, Margo Lee as Mrs Harrington, and James Condon as Mr Harrington.

In 1978 Glenda Jackson told Michael Pate that she would be interested in playing Mary but was booked up till 1982. It’s hard to imagine her in a role where Piper Laurie is perfect.

Colleen McCullough (born 1 June 1937) died on 29 January 2015, aged 77.

Piper Laurie (22 January 1932 – October 14, 2023).

Piper Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs on 22 January 1932) died in Los Angeles on October 14, 2023, aged 91, after a lengthy illness. Though Oscar nominated as Best Actress for The Hustler and Best Supporting Actress for Carrie and Children of a Lesser God, she did not win an Oscar. These three films, and Tim, are arguably (almost certainly) her best films and best performances.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,334

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