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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Before James Reyne became famous in Australian Crawl<\/a>, he was studying to be an actor at the Victorian College of the Arts. He met a wildly talented student from the year above, Vera Plevnik, and they became a couple.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was a big personality,\u201d Reyne said from his home on the Mornington Peninsula, an hour out of Melbourne, on a day off from his Fall of Crawl tour. \u201cA very vivacious woman. I was attracted to that. I don\u2019t know what she saw in me but anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n In time, they went their separate ways: Reyne to a successful music career that started with the 1979 hit Beautiful People then the classic The Boys Light Up; Plevnik to a most popular new talent Logie in 1980 for the TV series The Sullivans, then the film Monkey Grip.<\/p>\n It was another film that Plevnik had almost finished shooting when she was killed in a car accident in early 1982 \u2013 Haydn Keenan\u2019s gritty, energetic drama Going Down \u2013 that brought the two of them back together.<\/p>\n Related Article Keenan said Reyne called him to offer a song for the soundtrack out of affection for Plevnik; Reyne thinks it was the other way around.<\/p>\n Either way, Going Down opens with a Reyne singing What\u2019s It Like over a tracking shot of the carnage from a party in a Sydney share house.<\/p>\n Centring on four young women (played by Plevnik, Tracy Mann, Julie Barry and Moira MacLaine-Cross) on a last night out before one leaves for New York, the film was warmly reviewed but so disliked by cinema distributors that Keenan had to release it himself<\/a> in 1983. It found an audience at Sydney\u2019s long-gone Roma cinema but flopped in Melbourne.<\/p>\n The cast also included David Argue, who was both a roller-skating employment office clerk and a drag queen, and Esben Storm, who played a sordid writer, with cameos by Hugh Keays-Byrne, Claudia Karvan as a child, former barrister Charles Waterstreet and activist Gary Foley.<\/p>\n Reyne loved Going Down all those years ago and thinks it shows what a great actress Plevnik was.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m remember laughing and going \u2018This is just life, this is just how we live\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all lived in share houses. We went to those sort of parties.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery era has its own drug culture. [In Sydney then] it was Mandrax and booze.\u201d<\/p>\n Going Down was a long-forgotten Australian film that captured a moment in the nation\u2019s social history until an American filmmaker and distributor, Elizabeth Purchell, found an imported VHS of it in a New York video store. She liked that it was a female-centred film that was \u201cso evocative of the time and place\u201d and had a catchy soundtrack that included Pel Mel, Dynamic Hepnotics and The Birthday Party.<\/p>\n After Keenan found generous film industry friends who restored it in 4K, Going Down had a boutique cinema release in the US in May last year. It\u2019s now getting a second life \u2013 more than four decades on \u2013 in Australian cinemas.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s fantastic,\u201d Reyne said of the revival. \u201cThere\u2019s a great energy around the film because it came out of somewhere real \u2013 having to scrimp and save to make the film \u2013 and Haydn was probably pulling favours all over the place and using a core group of people.\u201d<\/p>\n Reyne likes that Going Down was about young women, which was rare in contemporary Australian films at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cThey took drugs as well, got messed up and had fights and loved each other,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was real.\u201d<\/p>\n Keenan is \u201ctotally excited\u201d that Going Down, having been restored so well that it looks better than it originally did, is heading back to cinemas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s $100,000 worth of work that I couldn\u2019t have paid for,\u201d he said. \u201cThe old-school film family saved the picture.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s given young people the chance to see that there were different sorts of films being made. I think we\u2019ve got two audiences: the old ones who saw it originally and want to go back and see how young and gorgeous they used to be. Then there\u2019s a new young crowd going, \u2018How come we haven\u2019t heard about this film?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Keenan said Going Down was made at a time when there was an explosive energy in Australian culture.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cThat\u2019s one of the things it reflects \u2013 the nightlife in [Kings] Cross, the live bands everywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThings are so different now. Trying to raise money for feature films is now a Herculean task. To get a film in cinemas, you deserve an Order of Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n Keenan still thinks of Plevnik\u2019s death as a tragedy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so, so horrible,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was an enormous talent and had a massive career in front of her.\u201d<\/p>\n Going Down is in cinemas from May 14.<\/p>\n Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our Screening Room newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"\u201cI\u2019m](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5b4dca19b4c80ccfc67094b919ca44646b2f71cb.jpeg\")
\u201cI\u2019m remember laughing and going \u2018this is just life, this is just how we live\u2019\u201c: James Reyne.Kane Hibberd<\/p>\n![\"\u201cThat\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ee1d7898edd42e045f2e68468aedf036afc2b66e.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Vera](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/876c4a9370b02fa3ff1241c5dc6a6f72d5ad6ad2.jpeg\")
Vera Plevnik in Going Down.Smart Street Films<\/p>\n![\"Director](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/d59a52284ce43cc2f7d367758cdbcb736881abc6.jpeg\")
Director Haydn Keenan and Tracy Mann, who played Karli in Going Down.Steven Siewert<\/p>\n![\"Tracey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6fba0a9900b448f15827caf39ceabc60fadeb03a.jpeg\")
Tracey Mann with David Argue, who played both a roller-skating employment office clerk and a drag queen in Going Down.Smart Street Films<\/p>\n![\"Going](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/b1e678fa3b8948ad28c58a7dee06a08d37e65796.jpeg\")
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