Children of the Revolution

Australia's most consistently fascinating export, Judy Davis has made a career of playing intriguingly high-strung women with a hilariously icy edge. Here, she plays the leader of Australia's Communist Party in the early 1950s whose struggles to keep the party alive are rewarded with a trip to Russia to meet Stalin himself (F. Murray Abraham). The meeting turns into a seduction, and she returns to Australia carrying Stalin's love child. So it's no surprise when her son Joe (Richard Roxburgh) grows up to be a political rabble-rouser, bringing the country to the brink of disaster. Filmed in mockumentary fashion by writer-director Peter Duncan, the film is never quite as funny as you wish it would be, but works as well as it does because of the performances by Rush and, particularly, Davis. --Marshall Fine