She eventually rejects Harry's lapse back to materialism and flees to the commune, refusing to see him. Harry decides that Barbara is his true love but he is soon drawn back into his old ways, and she with him. He is also seemingly 'tested' by a series of bizarre and frightening events including being ' sectioned' to a psychiatric hospital.įighting for his sanity, Harry flees his home and takes up residence in a hotel, where meets a young hippie country girl, Honey Barbara, who prostitutes herself and helps a friend sell marijuana on trips to the city to bring money back to their forest commune. Harry tries to reform and steer a morally correct path, abandoning most of the trappings of his previous affluent life, to the dismay and disruption of everyone around him. He eventually discovers that his wife is unfaithful, his dissolute daughter trades sex for hard drugs with his deviant son, and his latest client is a carcinogenic polluter. Upon recovering, he believes himself to be either in a hellish version of the world he knew, or with his eyes opened to an altogether different view of that world. Harry Joy ( Barry Otto), an advertising executive in an unnamed Australian city who is known for his ability to tell stories, has a terrifying near-death experience after suffering a massive heart attack, brought on by his dissolute lifestyle. It stars Barry Otto, Lynette Curran and Helen Jones.Īfter a rocky start – 400 of the 2000-strong audience walked out during its first screening at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival – the film went on to receive multiple awards at the AFI awards. Bliss is a 1985 Australian comedy-drama film directed by Ray Lawrence, and co-written by Lawrence and Peter Carey, based on Carey's 1981 novel of the same name.

Bliss by peter carey