Event

SLIFF - The King is Dead

The King Is Dead

Rolf de Heer, Australia, 2012, 106 min.

Friday, Nov. 16, 9:30 p.m., Hi-Pointe

Veteran SLIFF director Rolf de Heer ("Ten Canoes," "The Tracker") offers a darkly comic film about neighbors, amphetamines, and giant Maoris with baseball bats. Max and Therese are easygoing young yuppies who are happy with both each other and the world. Given their tolerant nature, when the couple moves into a new home, they initially find the antics of the drug-dealing party animal next door "interesting," but the incessantly loud neighbor taxes even their considerable patience and soon become intolerable. The police are powerless, and the community lawyer suggests ear plugs, so the frustrated Max and Therese attempt to tackle the problem on their own. The result is a corpse and even that's not the worst of it. Variety describes "The King Is Dead" as "a combo of dark suburban drama, absurdist social comedy and violent crime thriller" and calls it "an engaging and entertaining yarn."