High Tide (1987 film)

High Tide is a 1987 Australian film, from a script by Laura Jones, about the motherdaughter bond, directed by Gillian Armstrong. Armstrong reported that when she began work on High Tide she pinned a note above her desk Blood ties. Water. Running Away. Jan Adele plays Lillis motherinlaw Bet, in her film debut.

Lilli is one of three backing singers for a touring Elvis impersonator until she is fired. Then, left alone at the beginning of winter she is stranded in a ramshackle beach town on the windswept coast of New South Wales. This remote, working class, touristtown has a pervasive sense of rootlessness and movement. The people survive by changing their occupations with the seasons and work hard in small businesses. Here, stuck in the Mermaid Caravan Park, she encounters her teenage daughter Ally Claudia Karvan. When Lillis young surfer husband had died, she felt lost she gave up her baby to her motherinlaw, Bet. Lilli has been drifting ever since, and getting wasted. Bet is a rowdy, belligerent woman, devoted to Allyshe has taken care of her foryears but she has no idea how unhappy the girl is. Lilli has an immediate rapport with the lonely Ally even before she knows that Ally is her daughter, and after she knows, she cant take her eyes off her. They belong with each other. but Lillis terrified of taking on the responsibilities of motherhood, and Bet tells her shes riffraff. When we first see Ally she is in the water surfing isher refuge from the noisy junkiness of life with Bet. Bet isnt a monster, shes simply the wrong person to be raising the pensive Ally, whose emotions are hidden away, like her mothers. The drama is in our feeling that Lilli must not leave her daughter in the embrace of this raucous old trouper.The story was developed by Armstong, Sandra Levy and writer Laura Jones. They wanted to make something contemporary that had a small cast and would be relatively cheap to make. ........

Source: Wikipedia