Sweetie

"Sweetie" is definitely a matter of taste.

In fact, the usual terms critics rely on for unconventional films — offbeat, unique, off-center — don't begin to tell you just how far from the beaten path this one strays.

The title character, who doesn't really enter the film until the third reel, is a spoiled woman approaching middle age who is so demanding and childish when she doesn't get her way that she essentially terrorizes her family — and everyone else who comes in contact with her.

Earlier, the focus of the film is Sweetie's sister Kay, an odd woman obsessed with trees whose live-in boyfriend doesn't know quite what to make of her. But their life together is still relatively normal, as is that of her parents, to whom we are introduced — until Sweetie arrives.

Then we begin to understand that Kay has been underloved by her parents, and therefore is terribly insecure, while Sweetie has had her every whim catered to — especially by her father — and has become a demanding monster who has never grown up.

This is simplistic psychology, of course, but the film offers a lot of little off-the-wall subtleties to help the audience accept it, along with a visual style that is at once arresting and annoying — not to mention distracting (odd lighting and goofy camera angles galore).

Australian director/co-writer Joan Campion, who has a following for a series of short films she has made, may please her fans with "Sweetie," which marks her feature film debut. And indeed a number of American critics have fallen all over themselves with praise for this picture.

But for me there was no emotional connection.

There are scenes here, individual set-pieces, that can be admired; some amusing touches that prompt a smile; and performances, especially by Genevieve Lemon as Sweetie and Karen Colston as Kay, that are touching, if a bit broad.

And I did find myself asking, is this a black satirical comment on mental illness and how we deal with it — or don't deal with it? Is it a metaphor for larger social ills? Or is it just weird?

In the end, the overall film seems merely an artful conceit, all style and no substance, making its strange story and stranger people all the more unfathomable with its wild style.

For me, the result was unsatisfying, though you may beg to differ.

"Sweetie" is rated R for sex, nudity, profanity and violence.