Sam Sloan
Without the hype and big financial backing movies such at this one often go unnoticed. I didn't know what to expect when I began watching this movie, but it wasn't long before I was drawn into it and the movie did something I look for movies to do for me - it made me feel. We see a young girl named Heidi who begins by doing a foolish thing, kissing her mother's boyfriend and it goes a little too far just when her mother walks in on them. We don't know what happens to her mother's boyfriend, but Heidi is pretty much forced to leave her mother's home with barely the clothes on her back. What follows is fairly predictable. It doesn't take a genius to know that the world is a hostile place for someone who is without a place to live, money, friends, family and with her only assets being her youth and good looks. As I watched, my heart went out to her and I wondered would even I have taken advantage of her and her situation being so vulnerable and desirable, or would I have taken her under my wing and tried to help her as the child she really was and needed, though some might argue didn't deserve because of her naiveté and penchant for getting into jams. I imagine many men, especially would be wondering the same thing. I really liked this movie and the acting was first rate and that surprised me given all the actors were total unknowns. If you want to see another movie as good as this one and similar to this, try the French movie called Vagabond.
rooee
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.
Ken Knox
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.
AshLlewellyn
Somersault heralds a turning point in Australian cinema. It is a lone voice amongst a jaded cacophony of authoritarian overtures which, since the introduction of celluloid to this island nation, have bullied more interesting and engaging topics into submission.This is a story of a girl's sexual awakening. Although a common European theme, it is anathema to heavy-handed antipodeans who are as comfortable with the sexuality of adolescent women as they are with their own esoteric sexual proclivities.Almost as if she were a blind woman, the central character Heidi, moves sensually through her world, a libidinal, though naïve, Haetera, causing disorder where the cool hand of repression had previously established a façade of normalcy.The disruption to the repressive environment of rural Australia causes a whirlwind of angst and violence to surround her.A fascinating, sensual, quintessentially Australian film that is the first, and only, to begin to acknowledge our sexuality. How fitting, then, that the central character is an ingénue! We have a long way to go. But, kudos, Cate Shortland. The only Australian film that represents anything like an authentic Australian experience. Bravo!
AD
