Daily
Telegraph
Anita's death inspires film
By BRYCE
MURIEL'S Wedding starlet Toni Collette is set to star in a film inspired by the
murder of
Titled The Boys -and based on the controversial Australian play of the same
name -the low-budget feature film is scheduled to be shot in and around
Cosi actor David Wenham has been cast in the role of
Brett, a relentless sociopath who rapes and murders a young woman on the day he
is released from jail.
Collette will play his girlfriend.
Lynette Curran -currently appearing in Chekhov's The Seagull -is his mother,
and John Polson, perhaps best known as Russell Crowe's gay boyfriend in The Sum
Of Us, has landed the role of middle brother Glenn.
The film got its green light in the same week Blackrock,
a gritty look at the underbelly of teenage surf culture with strong parallels
to the 1989 murder of
"That's pure coincidence -we've been working on this film for five
years," Wenham said yesterday.
Wenham, who struck a chord with audiences as the pyromaniac in the clinically
insane Australian comedy Cosi, also played Brett in
the 1991 Griffin Theatre Company production at the Stables Theatre, in Kings
Cross.
Veteran Australian writer Stephen Sewell has adapted Gordon Graham's
award-winning play for the big screen and Robert Conolly
will produce.
Conolly describes The Boys as a tough suburban family
drama.
"The play was inspired by a series of brutal crimes against women, one of
which was the Anita Cobby murder," he said.
"But in no way is it the biographical story of Anita Cobby
-the character of Anita Cobby isn't even in the
play."
Wenham added: "Crimes like this are happening constantly, like in
"Violent crimes against women -it's still a taboo subject in society
today, and we're addressing it, I suppose."