Pickpockets Review: The Trouble With Being Memorable

The turquoise purse catches your eye, and for a second that feels like an accomplishment. Against the black-and-white Sydney of Pickpockets_Review.md, its colour makes it immediately desirable. When amateur thief Robin steals it from experienced pickpocket Jesse, she gives that little visual pleasure a consequence. We have already noticed the prize; now someone has taken it. Writer-director D. C. Fairhurst gets us enjoying the act of selection before we have much reason to care about the person doing the selecting. Robin has also chosen a particularly awkward person to rob.

Colour keeps inviting that kind of attention, though its rules become less clear away from the valuables. A flag, a train door, and street art receive similar emphasis. I occasionally wanted a firmer connection between what glows and what somebody wants, since the purse establishes that connection so neatly. Still, colourist Kali Bateman makes these interruptions sit beautifully within the monochrome image. The golden city lights and red car-boot interior let colour change the atmosphere too. Sydney remains a place to look around, rather than disappearing behind an endless succession of close-ups of loot.

The film is equally good at making listening feel active. During a chase, a stuttering AirPod connection becomes a means of orientation, and a familiar technological annoyance acquires suspense. You listen for information because the connection cannot be taken for granted. That is a satisfying way to involve an audience: the sound gives us a small task within the pursuit. Distorted guitars and emphatic horns supply a looser, swaggering pleasure elsewhere, helping the criminal activity feel inviting. Between the music and the selective colour, the film puts considerable effort into making us comfortable in questionable company.

Staying with that company depends on Fairhurst and Lucy Green, who play Jesse and Robin and co-wrote the screenplay. Their early competition includes deceptions, a short jail stay, and a stabbing, yet the mood remains remarkably buoyant. Those events belong to a dangerous occupation, but the film’s emotional emphasis falls on the personalities refusing to leave each other alone. Green’s outgoing improviser keeps pressing against Fairhurst’s anxious planner. Watching them becomes enjoyable through the friction between those habits, especially once Robin persuades Jesse to teach her a trade he would rather practise without her interference.

The apprenticeship gives their closeness something to do. Robin wants the rules and the “code of conduct”; Jesse prefers methods that attract little attention. He has practical reasons to find her exhausting, which makes his continued involvement appealing. His instruction also creates a small vulnerability. A man whose work depends on keeping other people unaware must explain his thinking to someone who has already deceived him. The romantic tension grows within that arrangement, as professional attention becomes personal interest. We can enjoy the lesson while wondering how much confidence either person should place in the teacher or the pupil.

I found the comedy warmest when the lesson ran into Robin’s personality. “What do I change to be less memorable?” she asks, with Green giving the question enough presence to make the assignment look hopeless. Jesse’s advice has encountered someone poorly suited to disappearing into a crowd. The dialogue does not always have the speed or verbal surprise that the screwball setup invites; requests for instruction can remain fairly functional. Green and Fairhurst supply the attraction those exchanges need through their opposing temperaments. Her readiness to engage keeps making his preference for unobtrusive work difficult to maintain.

The risky job planned with a Lego model extends that sense of play. It makes the preparations inviting to watch while preserving the slightly ridiculous pleasure of adults taking a miniature construction seriously. Jesse’s preference for uncomplicated methods hangs over the caper’s growing machinery, giving its complications a useful source of comic resistance. The little model also suits a film that can make an ordinary purse visually exciting. Both choices help us enjoy the handling and arrangement of things, so that planning has its own appeal before the job supplies its uncertainty.

Tim Minchin’s Jasper LeClaire changes the discomfort attached to attention. As an actor made volatile by the spotlight, he brings an aggressive energy to a story whose central pair usually make their disagreements inviting. With Jasper, being noticed has become oppressive. His presence gives the thieves’ need for anonymity a different emotional register without making their experiences interchangeable. Robin’s privileged background, Jesse’s concealed past, and Jasper’s public identity give them different reasons to manage what strangers can see. The film’s brightness has room for people who find visibility difficult to bear.

That difficulty returns us to Robin’s request to become less memorable. As criminal advice, Jesse’s caution is sensible; as a condition for spending time together, it becomes harder to accommodate. Green’s conspicuous warmth is part of what makes their partnership pleasurable, and the apprenticeship repeatedly brings that warmth into contact with his guardedness. Their attraction develops while he is trying to teach her habits that would make her harder to notice. Watching him continue the lessons, I became increasingly interested in how much of her he could ask to conceal while still wanting her company.

Pickpockets is an Australian crime caper and romantic comedy directed by D.C. Fairhurst. The story follows characters caught up in a high-stakes heist who must navigate romantic insecurities, rivalries, and unexpected connections to pull off the ultimate job and stay alive.

Full Credits

• Title: Pickpockets

• Distributor: Damaged Goods Productions

• Release date: 2026

• Director: D.C. Fairhurst

• Writers: D.C. Fairhurst, Lucy Green

• Producers and Executive Producers: D.C. Fairhurst, Lucy Green

• Cast: D.C. Fairhurst, Lucy Green, Tim Minchin, Mia Morrissey, Zoe Terakes, Darren Gilshenan, Matt Levett, Moon Ayomide

• Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Goldie Soetianto