‘High Tide’

Gillian Armstrong’s intense and rich 1987 Australian film continually plays against expectations of sentimental cliches or programmed heart-tugging as it tells of the painfully awakened bond between a teen-age daughter (Claudia Karvin) and the mother (Judy Davis, in a genuinely great performance as a wasted, reckless, lyrically drunken misfit) who abandoned her years before for a life on the road.

(Cinemax Wednesday at 7 a.m.)