Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1993
Gross Misconduct (film)
Buy Gross Misconduct (film) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Gross Misconduct' is a 1993 Australian thriller film directed by George T. Miller. It stars Jimmy Smits and Naomi Watts. It was nominated for an award by the Australian Film Institute in 1993. The film has been described as an Australian version of 'Fatal Attraction'.
Plot
At an all-girls academy in Australia, a married philosophy professor, Justin Thorne, attracts a fervent admirer in one of his students, Jennifer Carter.
Daughter of the school's headmaster, Jennifer is driven by a passion for the professor, practically throwing herself at him. Thorne resists repeatedly, but finally yields to temptation. Jennifer, feeling rejected later, accuses the professor of a sexual assault. A journal she has been keeping, fantasizing about a lover, makes it appear that she and the professor have been carrying on a long affair, placing Thorne's reputation and future in grave danger.
After Thorne is found guilty in a jury trial it emerges that Jennifer's father has been sexually abusing her over some considerable time, and pesters her once again. This time she snaps, and stabs him in the face with a kitchen implement. The last scene shows Thorne emerging from jail, freed.
Cast
*Jimmy Smits as Justin Thorne
*Naomi Watts as Jennifer Carter
*Sarah Chadwick as Laura Thorne
*Adrian Wright as Kenneth Carter
*Tara Judah as Nancy Thorne
*Ross Williams as David Guilde
*Goran Stamenkovic as Oliver Thorne
Story and production
The film was based on the play 'Assault With a Deadly Weapon' which was written in 1969 by Lance Peters. It had been suggested by a 1955 scandal in Hobart, where university professor Sydney Orr had been sacked from his job on grounds of gross misconduct. 'Gross Moral Turpitude', Cassandra Pybus' book on the Orr case which also emerged in 1993, gives a very different reading on Orr from Peters' and this film's. She writes that "in the Orr case... it was almost universally accepted... that an academic who seduced a student should be dismissed. He did. He was."Pybus, Cassandra. 'Gross Moral Turpitude'. Heinemann, Port Melbourne 1993 p. 214
The movie was the first film to be produced by PRO Films in Australia, a subsidiary of R.A. Beacker & Co. It was shot at various locations around Melbourne, including The University of Melbourne, the Melbourne Magistrates Court and Queen Victoria Market.
Box office
'Gross Misconduct' grossed $489,598 at the box office in Australia.
See also
*Cinema of Australia
References
Buy Gross Misconduct (film) now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1993