Harbour Highlights: Big Wednesday
12A 120 mins
12A 120 mins
“I don't wanna be a star. Have my picture in magazines, have a bunch of kids looking up to me. I'm a drunk, Bear, a screw up. I just surf cause it’s good to go out and ride with your friends”
Welcome to Harbour Highlights, a series of cult and classic favourites, handpicked by the Harbour Lights staff.
For the long, hot days of August, Mat takes us to the Malibu beaches of the 1960s for John Milius’s coming-of-age surfer drama Big Wednesday.
Set mostly over the course of six years, the film follows three friends from the summers of 1962 to 1968, their passion for surfing keeping them close as they navigating their transition to adulthood and the end of their innocence, with the Vietnam War and its inevitable impact looming over their lives.
Inspired by his own years spent surfing, Milius worked on the film for years as he attempted to recapture a time, a place and a culture that meant so much to him in authentic a way as possible.
Facing “a lot of pressure to make it more like Animal House”, he stuck to his guns in his attempt to make a film with “loftier ambitions”.
His efforts paid off – while Big Wednesday was a flop on original release, a response that “really tore” Milius up due to its personal nature, it has since been reclaimed as a cult classic and the iconic surfing film, with Quentin Tarantino later claiming that, of Milius’s films, “it's hard to argue against the idea that his surfer epic Big Wednesday isn't his classic”.
A film full of passion, heart and very big waves, it’s a perfect summer big screen experience.