Not to be confused with the 2022 movie of the same name that is about a band, or the short film by Gabriele Rigon, or the 2014 police comedy, or the fantasy action series Siren, or anything else that has the same or similar name. The naming of this certainly contributes to it being lost in the shuffle and not a well heard of movie today. Does it deserve to be a well heard of movie today? In my opinion, not really.
Sirens is the story of, as best as I can tell, an Anglican minister played by Hugh Grant is sent to Australia in the 1920s, and on his way out to his new parish, is asked to convince an artist who makes paintings that are perceivably horny and/or satanic to stop with the paintings. Since the artist does not care about offending the church and needs to produce art to support his family, and Hugh Grant's character is kind of a putz, the artist is completely unmotivated to change. That is the whole thing spoiled in a nutshell right there, but there is more. Whether or not Hugh grant stops Sam Neil from drawing dirty pictures was not intended to be the suspense of the movie.
The minister's wife is unsatisfied sexually in the marriage, which according to the movie: gives her a pass to cheat on him devoid of guilt. Some people are just that way, so it isn't unbelievable or anything, it just feels a little weird how they sort of gloss over that aspect, and the intended feeling is for the audience to be glad for Estella's (Tara Fitzgerald) "sexual awakening". This makes Estella the only character that changes significantly or really accomplishes anything, so she was the main character? I would say so because the culture clash between Sam Neil and Hugh Grant becomes more of a background situation, while more attention and camera time goes to Tara Fitzgerald and her concerns as the movie goes. The Grant / Neil scenes are mainly intended as dry comedy.
The story is thin all around and it is a container for artful and tasteful motion imagery of tits. To the film's credit, it makes a very self-aware nod to this in an ending shot. Maybe there is an allegory between the nudity in Sam Neil's paintings as an artistic statement and making a film that is loaded down with on purpose gratuitous nudity and sexual situations as an....artistic statement?
It is even more evident the film makers knew they were making spank bank based on the evolution of change in film posters and promotional material as the movie was winding down from its theatrical run and entering the home video and PPV market. They introduce the slogan "be seduced" and Elle Macpherson becomes more prominent (and less clothed) in the poster art until Sam Neil and Hugh Grant are missing altogether. They went from implying it was a rom-com where Grant and Macpherson were the "will they / won't they" couple, which isn't what happens at all, to Macpherson maybe being some type of paranormal sex-creature that stands topless in a shallow lake. While Macpherson's character is for all we are told a mortal human and doesn't (verifiably) consummate with anyone during the course of the film, she does stand topless in a shallow lake a couple of times, so the latter "sex sells" promotional posters are technically the most honest.
Elle Macpherson does fine in her role as the de facto leader of the titular Sirens, and all the acting is acceptable. Well, the thing with 90s Hugh Grant always being that same nebbish but "charming?" guy hasn't aged well, but overall, the acting was decent. At any rate, I felt like Tara Fitzgerald is doing the heavy lifting acting wise, and is comparably as attractive as Elle was, and it seems a little unfair or just odd that Fitzgerald is missing from most every movie poster. This had to be a "period" movie because otherwise, nude art modeling could not be framed as controversial. All the sets and costumes do well to sell the time period of its setting. The background music is kind of droning and generic and has a very made for TV quality to it. This movie is very normal, but it is also kind of strange in a way. There is a lot of non-sequitur in the conversational dialogue, and even though it is part of the movie proper, you feel like you are overhearing things. Some moments of true comedy come in that sometimes people are talking about nonsense that has no bearing on anything.