Review by ptb-8

SAY A LITTLE PRAYER is a tough film about child loneliness and misplaced love. Adapted by the director Richard Lowenstein, from a hugely popular novel by Australian woman Robin Klein, he changed the title from CAME BACK TO SHOW YOU I COULD FLY which, had the film retained the title would have helped the first cinema release enormously. The book has such an inbuilt audience, lost with the title change. Klein's latest book to be adapted has retained it's title and was released in 2005: HATING ALISON ASHLEY, and not a big fat hit. Young lead boy actor called Sudi De Winter is simply superb and it is a major loss to films that he is not still on screen somewhere. Hs last effort was in an OK 1998 TV show called RAW FM set in a community radio station managed by teens. Sudi would be about 24 now. Lead actress Fiona Ruttelle was suitably irritating as the young prostitute friend he adopts for the long hot lonely school holidays. But he film belongs to Sudi. Director Lowenstein previously produced the heroin house rock drama DOGS IN SPACE which starred ill fated singer Michael Hutchence. His later comedy HE DIED WITH A FALAFEL IN HIS HAND, an adaptation of a pub comedy play was not the success hoped to see his career revive. SAY A LITTLE PRAYER is a strong teen film for ages 14 and up.