Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Writer/director: Sue Thomson, The Backlot Films.
“The hidden faces of homelessness” puts the focus on a shattering reality: women over 50 are the fastest growing cohort experiencing homelessness in Australia. The reasons are complicated.
Under Cover features poignant, but sanguine portraits that reveal the struggles these women face and lays bare the flaws in our society, as well as our economic fragility in the modern world.
Writer/director Sue Thomson (Tempest at the Drop-In, Talking Turkey, Boys and Balls, The Fifth Set, The Last Great Amateurs) first read about this crisis in a newspaper article in 2018. The shock of reading about these women, whose lives paralleled her own, prompted her to look into the issue further. The result is an
eye-opener.
Narrated by Margot Robbie and sharing the lives of an eclectic group of women throughout Australia, Under Cover follows the stories of Linda, Sarah-Jane, Claire, Cheryl, Suzelle, Nada, Susan, Margaret, Mary and Rama, as they find themselves too old to be employed, struck down with illness, unable to get back into the workforce and dealing with the aftermath of difficult breakups and divorces. These women come from a diverse group with varied backgrounds. Life hadn’t panned out the way they expected. As if this wasn’t enough to worry about, they must then try to navigate through the strain and uncertainty of a global pandemic.
These intricate and persuasive stories reflect the years of living ordinary lives, until a catastrophe or a series of circumstances knocked them off their feet.
Owning our own home is the great Australian dream, which is not within everyone’s reach. Without stable housing it is a rollercoaster of emotions.
Filmed over the course of two-and-a-half-years, Thomson’s latest documentary builds a mind-altering montage of quiet bravery in the midst of an invisible, but endemic crisis impacting women from many walks of life.
Heart-breaking stories are revealed and the issues are confronting. A staggering 405,000 Australian women over 50 are at risk of homelessness today.
- Under Cover is screening in select cinemas
