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Clip description
The team give up on the petrol station shooting case for the night, frustrated at their lack of progress. It’s New Year’s Eve. Jane Halifax (Rebecca Gibney) is at home supposedly profiling suspects but is instead toasting a photograph of her dead father. Eric Ringer (Hugh Jackman) decides to pay Halifax a visit.
Curator’s notes
Jane Halifax is the repeat character in the Halifax telemovies but the supporting cast change from film to film. Her reluctance to commit to romantic relationships is, then, not only appropriate to the sleuth archetype but also a handy way to avoid having to keep a love interest into the next film.
Here writer-producer Roger Simpson uses wry banter to build up the sexual tension between Halifax and Ringer. Along the way, more is revealed of her character – not only through dialogue but also details like her swanky, but rather sterile, apartment and unopened Christmas presents.
Halifax’s repeat references to herself here as an ‘older woman’ strike a slightly odd note as Gibney is only four years older than Jackman.
