Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Abbie Cornish | ... | Heidi | |
Damian de Montemas | ... | Adam | |
Olivia Pigeot | ... | Nicole | |
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Alex Babic | ... | Brian the barman |
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Elizabeth Muntar | ... | Ticket Vendor |
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Justin Martin | ... | Guy |
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Ben Tate | ... | Sean |
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Joshua Phillips | ... | Josh |
Sam Worthington | ... | Joe | |
Nathaniel Dean | ... | Stuart | |
Paul Gleeson | ... | Roy | |
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Bruce Ross | ... | Staring Man |
Lynette Curran | ... | Irene | |
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John Sheerin | ... | Pat |
Anne-Louise Lambert | ... | Martha (as Anne Louise Lambert) |
Coming of age: Heidi, 15, runs away from home after her mom sees her kissing mom's boyfriend. She goes to a Snowy River resort where a vague job offer doesn't pan out. She manages to find a place to live and a job at a convenience store. She's between childhood -- nursery rimes and a scrapbook of glittery unicorns - and adulthood - working, sorting out emotions and sexuality, and dealing with social slights and false charges of bad behavior. She's attractive and her loneliness makes her vulnerable. She sleeps with Joe, the son of local ranchers, and she awakens in him feelings he can't express. Is there any way she can put off adulthood and be a kid awhile longer? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
There is a moment in Cate Shortland's "Somersault" where Joe (Sam Worthington), a surly and emotionally closed-off young man confused over the feelings he has for his kind-of girlfriend Heidi (Abbie Cornish), shows up at the home of an openly gay acquaintance of his mother's andafter downing several shots and spilling his guts to the older manfollows him into the hallway and makes an awkward pass at him by planting a drunken kiss on him. It's a surprising twist in both Joe's development as a character and the movie itself, but it's just one of several similarly unexpected--and unexplained--moments that define Shortland's oddly compelling drama about sexual coming-of-age. Joe is not the main character, nor does the film ever revisit his attempt at same-sex experimentation, and it's that vague attention to detail that is the most frustrating aspect of the movie. The story actually belongs to Heidi, an evidently emotionally troubled teenager with no concept of propriety who, for no apparent reason, decides to make a pass at her mother's hunky boyfriend. When mom comes home and catches the two kissing, she freaks, and Heidi runs away to a neighboring town. There, she shacks up in the small flat of an empathetic motel owner, gets a job at the local BP service station, and has sex with a string of guys. It is Joe, however, that most captivates her, and their awkward and strained attempts at forging a relationship are some of the most authentic captured on celluloid. Both of them are plagued by troubles that are never explored (apparently, Heidi once tried to commit suicide, as is evidenced by the scars on her wrists), but as they begin to open up to each other, the movie becomes more fascinating and oddly romantic. Shortland's direction is as languid as her ambling script (a bit more back story on the characters would have made them more three- dimensional), but her style is effective nonetheless, providing a showcase for the talents of both Worthington and Cornish, two young Aussie up-and-comers who appear to have big futures ahead of them. Grade: B.--Originally published in IN Los Angeles Magazine.