Topless women talk about their lives

This fresh, low-budget, comedy of manners explores contemporary relationships through the romantic entanglements and dilemmas facing a circle of friends in their late twenties. Sinclair’s debut feature is based on a ‘micro series’ of 4 minute episodes he made for New Zealand television that followed events in the lives of a group of friends living in Auckland, and is similarly structured as a series of loosely connected episodes. Liz (Danielle Cormack) is disturbed to find that she is pregnant and potentially facing motherhood as a single mother. Her horny and geekish boyfriend (Joel Tobeck), is refusing to deal with the impending return of his other girlfriend from overseas. Prue (Willa O’Neill), Liz’s best friend, is having traumas of her own as she deals with the joys of her forthcoming marriage to Niue-born Mike (Shimpal Lelisi). Then there is the neurotic linchpin of the film, aspiring film-maker and “psychologically scarred” Ant (Ian Hughes) who experiences the trauma of attending the painfully bad premier screening of the feature film he has written. Featuring a music soundtrack by well known New Zealand acts including The Chills, The Clean, The Bats and Chris Knox, “Topless Women” effortlessly mixes comedy and drama to portray Gen-X angst.