Milla

Where to start with this fantastic film?

Firstly every single performance is flawless. Eliza Scanlen as the lead is magnetic, impossible to take your eyes off. She plays the role so well, showing great vulnerability and warmth balanced with such fire and spirit in her character. It's such a well written part and so well played. Toby Wallace as Moses is equally brilliant, and the on screen chemistry and interactions between the two are so captivating.

In terms of the story it is so compelling. Each character has such different reactions and ways of progressing through the unfolding events of the plot, with everything feeling very real and poignant. There's so much beauty in the story and so much emotion as well, it really will take it out of you after watching this.

To top it all off the film also has such a gorgeous feel to it. It looks beautiful, has such a peaceful and calming score, and has this vein of almost tranquillity running through it.

A beautiful hidden gem of a film.

There are a lot of things this movie does great, I want to comment right off the bat. However, part of me was frustrated I didn't love the whole movie, and I think there were just a few things holding it back from greatness. As such, I'm probably going to cover more negatives than positives here. If anything it's probably more like the equivalent of a 7.5 rather than a 7, so I hope it doesn't read too much like I'm bashing on the movie.

On the topic of positives: the acting across the board is very strong, particularly from Ben Mendelsohn, who seems to shine no matter what movie he's in. It captures the feeling of living in the Australian suburbs with an uncanny accuracy (can confirm, I've been there all my life), it uses music extremely well (especially one scene around the halfway mark that uses the anxious yet beautiful 'Bizness' by Tune-Yards), there are some genuinely emotional moments, and the direction is largely good.

I say largely good because aspects of how the movie looked would be one of my complaints. It adopts a handheld style for much of the runtime, and honestly it works the vast majority of the time. That being said, I couldn't help but notice a couple of instances where it was too rough; where it stopped looking like handheld camerawork and instead just looked like shoddy camerawork. These moments were rare, but one instance early on- where it looked like the camera banged into something and jolted slightly but noticeably- was distracting.

Speaking of distracting: so were the occasional Flea-Bag style glances to the camera from the main character. I'm sure there was a purpose, but it was lost on me (such a minor comment though, and not really a flaw if it just comes down to me being a dummy and not understanding).

Also, the film has a very episodic feel that creates a mild sense of repetition in parts. For just under two hours, it does feel a tiny bit long. I think you could have kept it episodic and maybe shortened some sequences, or excised one of the subplots (the violin teacher stuff didn't add a whole heap to the story, in my opinion). Or: give the narrative more of a logical flow and make the series of events more coherent and satisfying; traditional, even. The risk with doing that would be making the already quite simple story feel dangerously cliche, and so I think the best solution would be to keep the episodic feel but with about 10-15 minutes trimmed off the run time.

Like I said, it's very good though. And the acting, music, emotional content, setting, and most of the visuals are clearly good, while some of those other aforementioned nitpicks- had they been addressed- could have made for a movie that I would've loved.

The story is well told; especially good is that they SHOW you about various aspects of the story, and dont just TELL you key points. You are SHOWN that the parents have a complicated relationship, and as such hers is likely going to be. Characters are well fleshed out with interesting foibles, tics and characteristics. I don't know if this is the work of the scriptwriter? The director? Or if the book was just that good that it inspired everyone to great heights.

I dont like stories about teenagers very much typically, but I'm VERY glad I watched this. It's probably the best Australian movie I've seen in many years.

This movie is pure love. It captured everything. I am so grateful for art like this to exist and to remind us we are alive. I think it's the best music I've ever heard in a movie in years. It is a masterpiece because it used everything this very diverse form of art has to offer to deliver such a palpable, direct, honest, and real taste of the beauty inherent to life and love. I'm always shocked when I discover a movie like this, stunned by the clarity and the truth of the vision it offers. Watch it, live it. Thanks to everybody involved in this piece of art.

You could watch it thinking just another teenage drama all doomed with tragedy but wait till the end. It's not till the end the true goal is achieved and true characters are revealed. Truth is, this is story with obvious outcome but what makes it different is the characters and how they reach to reality of situation. The scene cut abruptly and goes back and forth from sad to jumpy to anger to romance and back to being sad. Even the mysterious reveal is so subtle that many of us won't notice. But it's all with good intentions that movie is wrapped up by the waves crashing beach which metaphorically symbolises that you live multiple lives of your parents and your friends and you lose all those lives when you die.