The Eye of the Storm (2011 film)

In a Sydney suburb, two nurses, a housekeeper and a solicitor attend to Elizabeth Hunter as her expatriate son and daughter convene at her deathbed. In dying, as in living, Mrs. Hunter remains a formidable force on those around her. It is via Mrs Hunter’s authority over living that her household and children vicariously face death and struggle to give consequence to life.

Estranged from a mother who was never capable of loving them Sir Basil, a famous but struggling actor in London and Dorothy, an impecunious French princess, attempt to reconcile with her. In doing so they are reduced from states of worldly sophistication to floundering life.

The children unite in a common goal — to leave Australia with their vast inheritance. Moving through Sydney’s social scene, they search for a way to fulfill their desire. Using the reluctant services of their family lawyer Arnold Wyburd, who was long in love with Mrs Hunter, they scheme to place their mother in a society nursing home to expedite her demise.

Panic sets in as the staff sense the impending end of their eccentric world. Mrs Hunter confesses her profound disappointment at failing to recreate the state of humility and grace she experienced when caught in the eye of a cyclone fifteen years earlier.

For the first time in their lives, the meaning of compassion takes the children by surprise. During a ferocious storm Mrs Hunter finally dies, not through a withdrawal of will but by an assertion of it. In the process of dying she re-lives her experience in the cyclone. Standing on a beach, she is calm and serene as devastation surrounds her.

• Geoffrey Rush as Basil Hunter
• Charlotte Rampling as Elizabeth Hunter
• Judy Davis as Dorothy de Lascabanes
• John Gaden as Arnold Wyburd
• Robyn Nevin as Lal
• Helen Morse as Lotte
• Colin Friels as Athol Shreve
• Dustin Clare as Col
• Liz Alexander as Cherry Cheesman
• Maria Theodorakis as Mary DeSantis
• Alexandra Schepisi as Flora
• Louise Siversen as Carol
• Heather Mitchell as June
• Benita Collings as Lady at lunch
• Laurent Boulanger as French waiter^[4]