Alice in wonderland

Directing debut for Campion daughter shows initial promise then unravels.

- Russell Baillie

BAD BEHAVIOUR

Directed by Alice Englert

In the recent documentary Jane Campion, The Cinema Woman, there's a nice moment from yet another film festival press conference when the directing Dame nods towards her then teenage daughter in the wings and says: "Alice is my best movie."

Australian-born Alice Englert, whose father Colin is also a director, has grown up in the arthouse. An actor since adolescence, she's established herself as an edgy character actor in films like Ginger and Rosa, then taken that indie profile to a regular presence on prestige television dramas, including her mother's Top of the Lake: China Girl.

Now, after directing a couple of short films, she has written and delivered her debut feature, Bad Behaviour, an off-kilter, initially darkly funny mother-daughter story with autobiographical overtones.