Somersault (2004)

hyped garbage

Best movie ever!

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Australian screenwriter and director Cate Shortland's feature film debut which she wrote, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 57th Cannes International Film Festival in 2004, was shot on various locations in Australia and is an Australian production which was produced by producer Anthony Anderson and executive produced by Australian producer Jan Chapman. It tells the story about a 16-year-old girl named Heidi who lives in an apartment with her mother and her mother's boyfriend in Canberra, Australia. One morning after her mother discovers her boyfriend and Heidi kissing, an emotional confrontation occurs and winds up with Heidi running to the closest bus-station and taking the first available bus to Jindabyne where she tries to locate a friend. Heidi finds no traces of her friend and with no place to stay and only a small amount of money at her disposal she has to find a job and a place to live. By coincident she meets a local boy named Joe who is charmed by her and who takes her to a motel where they spend the night. The following day Heidi meets a woman named Irene who manages the motel and who after being told a lie by Heidi about her mother, lets her stay there until she finds herself a job. Heidi is getting settled in Jindabyne and her strong feelings for Joe are emerging, but her lies are catching up with her. Distinctly and acutely directed by Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland, this rhythmic fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the main character's point of view, draws an intimate and incisive portrayal of a vulnerable and love-seeking sixteen-year-old who goes on a risky guilt-trip far from home and her relationship with a young man. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, fine cinematography by cinematographer Robert Humphreys, editing by film editor Scott Gray and the brilliant use of sound, character-driven and profound independent film which examines themes like independence, self-discovery, family relations, interpersonal relations, love and alienation, contains a great score by Decoder Ring that emphasizes the protagonist's inner states and the poignant atmosphere.This somewhat enigmatic, romantic and consistently engaging drama which is like a poetic poem that reflects over the search for identity with subtle perspectives, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, the versatile and emotionally intricate acting performance by Australian actress Abbie Cornish and the substantial acting performance by Australian actor Sam Worthington. A memorable and tender study of character which gained, among numerous other awards, five FCCA Awards at the 14th Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards in 2004 and thirteen AFI Awards at the 44th Australian Film Institute Awards in 2004.

Like last year's Bright Star, Somersault sees the luminous Abbie Cornish steal every scene in a neatly framed, well-meaning, but vapid love story. This Heidi is no Fanny though; she's shy and desperate to feel wanted, and emotional security above romance is the order of the day. She obviously sees something similarly fragile in Sam Worthington's Joe. It's just a pity that Worthington the actor hasn't the subtlety to convince us of this hidden sensitivity; his shifts in mood come across as minor Hulk moments. He even has a Lou Ferrigno mullet.The plotting itself is fine, but the dialogue is often flat and feels very 'written': lots of unlikely, monosyllabic, stabbing exchanges, which tend to undermine the chilly rawness of the film's photography and themes.There's a bleak spine of truth running through Cate Shortland's debut feature, and many well-observed scenes. But ultimately it comes off as a kind of STI-free rendition of Lilya-4-Ever.

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 and—after downing several shots and spilling his guts to the older man—follows 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.

"Somersault" is a fresh spin on the in-over-their heads teenager movie, particularly the mixed-up city girl confusing the well-meaning country boy sub-genre. It is a sophisticated look at the motivations and resourcefulness of a teen age runaway. In her debut feature, writer/director Cate Shortland poignantly captures a girl's search for love and independence through sex. It isn't often that we see a film about tantalizing jail-bait from the girl's perspective. The town settings from Canberra to Jindabyne in New South Wales are unusual for Australian films we usually get to see in the U.S., providing an unusual meeting place for cold-weather tourists, the poor in their service industry, and farmers in from cattle stations.Abbie Cornish is a marvel in the central role. Looking startlingly like the young Nicole Kidman from her early Australian movies such as "Flirting", she morphs from coltish girl to sexual aggressor, even as it's clear she doesn't understand what she's getting herself into by thinking she can live out her fantasy in following one guy after another who she has met on the road. With the glimpses we get of her tumultuous inner world through a childish diary, "Heidi"s naiveté is palpably painful as Cornish projects her at different times in the film as being the character's actual 16 or pretending to be 20 when she thinks she can use sex as a manipulable tool without realizing what creepy situations can result. The subtlety of her performance extends to how differently she relates to men than women, particularly as she keeps seeking out mother figures. Sam Worthington is heartbreakingly sweet as equally naive, somewhat older "Joe", who clumsily becomes her protector and something more. I wasn't clear, though, about his back story with issues in his past (there's a lot of family secrets all around). The film also comments on bloke culture, including the ambiguous touches of homo-eroticism in male bonding.The scenes between these two marginalized young people are engrossing with their attraction and hesitation, as they clumsily imitate adult behavior that they can't really handle. Bouncing between maturity and immaturity, tenderness and aggression, they have enough trouble expressing and understanding their feelings without adding sex into the mixture.A side story with an autistic child leads to a way too didactic discussion about empathy and emotions, with flash cards no less.The cinematography had a lovely blue haze, but used fuzzy focus too often. I had some difficulty understanding the male dialogue among thick accents and low sound projection in the Time Square Theater, compounded by the restless male audience, up and down, in and out, slamming doors, who seemed mostly attracted to the film by Cornish's nude scenes. This film is a creative contrast to American indie films that tend to see young women on the cusp of adulthood more as victims as they experiment with their sexual power, such as "Blue Car" or "Hard Candy", or in commercial fare as innocents, like "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", let alone male fantasy objects as in "American Beauty". A spate of recent non-American directors have focused on their impact on males, such as in "The Holy Girl (La Niña santa)", "À Tout de Suite (Right Now)", and "Lila Says (Lila dit ça)", with varying degrees of the success of this film in capturing their girl/woman confusion.