Mel Gibson won Best Actor at the Australian Film Awards for his charming portrayal of Tim, a young, retarded man making his living doing gardening in the suburbs of Melbourne.
Piper Laurie Catherine in Twin Peaks is the middle-aged spinster who hires him as her gardener, and, touched by his naïvite, teaches him to read. Gibson sensitively portrays Tim without resorting to the usual facial tics associated with this type of role, and, even when a romance begins to develop between the pair, the film rarely slides into cliché, a box of tissues is recommended for the soft of heart.