Till Human Voices Wake Us (2003)

There's water, water everywhere -- and strands of poetry clinging to the plot like slimy kelp -- in the precious Australian supernatural romance Till Human Voices Wake Us by writer-director Michael Petroni. The three words that complete the phrase are ''and we drown,'' which, as the class knows, is the final line of T.S. Eliot's ''The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.''

Petroni takes the poem at face value, turning diaphanous literary imagery opaque and literal in the love song of Sam Franks (stone-faced Guy Pearce), a psychiatrist who returns to his childhood home, remembers a girl he once loved, and meets a mysterious woman who calls herself Ruby (distressed-looking Helena Bonham Carter). At one point Ruby is actually ''wreathed with seaweed red and brown'' herself.

You Might Also Like

• Review Small Worlds (Feb 21, 2003) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
• Movie Review Traitor (Aug 27, 2008) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
• Movie Review Sixty Six (Aug 01, 2008) | Lisa Schwarzbaum
• Movie News Helena Bonham Carter to join 'Terminator 4'? (May 22, 2009)
• Summer Movie Q&A Bonham Carter: ''I think I took my sadism a bit too literally'' | Steve Daly
• Movie News Nobel laureate-penned books and the box office (1998) | Christian Blauvelt