Themes: Coping With Puberty, Unrequited Love, First Love
Main Cast: Noah Taylor, Leone Carmen, Ben Mendelsohn, Graeme Blundell, Lynette Curran
Release Year: 1987
Country: AU
Run Time: 103 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
The life of a teen in an isolated small town is the subject of Australian writer/director John Duigan's film, set in 1962 in New South Wales. Duigan's coming-of-age story has many familiar elements -- Danny Embling (Noah Taylor) discovers his sexual attraction to a childhood playmate (Leone Carmen as Freya), he undergoes the taunts of bullies at his school, rages against the narrow-minded views of his parents and many of the townspeople, and comes under the influence of a sympathetic adult (Bruce Spence as Jonah, a would-be writer who lives in an abandoned railroad car). The twist is that Danny's rival for Freya's affections, Trevor (Ben Mendelsohn), is a Jewish jock who becomes Danny's friend by standing up to the bullies and treating Freya with more respect than the other boys do. Duigan, who had been making films in Australia since the mid-'70s, broke through to U.S. audiences with this film and its sequel, Flirting, in which Noah Taylor reprises the lead role. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Review
Filmmaker's John Duigan's breakthrough films (this and its sequel, Flirting) remain his strongest achievements, not because they attempt to do anything unusual, but because they tackle the well-worn dramatic conventions in the coming-of-age subgenre so adeptly. Danny Embling is an engaging kid, no Holden Caulfield or even Antoine Doinel, but still beholden to the same turbulent emotions that any small-town adolescent with an ounce of sensitivity would be. He sees himself as a more than a soul mate with his onetime playmate, Freya, but her hormones have found a different target, Trevor, a handsome if a bit feckless athlete who befriends Danny, leaving him even more confused. How angry can he be that the girl he loves and his pal are lovers? Duigan's film is best at portraying the impossibly tangled geometry of teenaged alliances; Danny spends one night with Freya and Trevor in an abandoned house, and the girl and her beau can't keep their hands off each other, while Danny tries to put on a brave face, even as you can see the heartbreak written all over it. This is the strongest scene in a film filled with sharply drawn characters and forcefully presented dilemmas. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Malcolm Robertson - Bruce Embling; Bruce Spence - Jonah; Judi Farr - Sheila Embling; Tim Robertson - Bob Leishman; Harold Hopkins - Tom Alcock; Nick Tate - Sgt. Pierce; Vincent Ball - Headmaster; Kelly Dingwall - Barry; Colleen Clifford - Gran Olson; Mary Regan - Miss McColl; Matthew Ross - Malseed; Allan Penney - Martin; Dorothy St. Heaps - Mrs. Beal
Credit
Barbara Gibbs - Associate Producer, Alison Barrett - Casting, Charles Rotherham - First Assistant Director, John Duigan - Director, Neil Thumpston - Editor, Christine Woodruff - Composer (Music Score), Roger Ford - Production Designer, Geoff Burton - Cinematographer, Terry Hayes - Producer, George Miller - Producer, Doug Mitchell - Producer, Ross Linton - Sound/Sound Designer, John Duigan - Screenwriter
In the 1960s, Danny (Noah Taylor), an underdeveloped, socially awkward adolescent, falls in love with his best friend Freya (Loene Carmen) in a small town in rural New South Wales, Australia. Unfortunately, her heart is set on Trevor (Ben Mendelsohn), a high school rugby star, larrikin and petty criminal who shelters Danny from the cruelty of other children at school. The film is a series of interconnected segments narrated by Danny who recollects how he and Freya grew apart over the course of one year. Shortly after sleeping with Freya, Trevor steals a car for a joyride and is arrested and sent to juvenile detention; it is while he's away that Freya reveals to Danny that she's pregnant. Danny offers to marry her and claim that the child is his, but Freya refuses, saying that she wouldn't even marry Trevor. Meanwhile, intrigued by a gift left to Freya by an elderly friend of theirs who recently died—a locket engraved "SEA"-- Danny begins to investigate the town's past, and discovers a lone tombstone in the cemetery bearing those initials, belonging to a "Sara Elizabeth Amery," who died days after Freya was born. Through inquiries at the local pub, Danny learns that Sara was something of the town prostitute years ago, and that she was Freya's biological mother, who died trying to give birth herself at home without the assistance of a doctor or midwife.
Trevor breaks out of detention, steals another car, and severely wounds a store clerk in the progress of an armed robbery. Trevor returns to town long enough to reunite with Freya and learn that she's pregnant. Trevor tells Freya he has to leave town again, and that she should entrust herself and their child to Danny. The police arrive at Trevor's hiding place; Danny warns him, and Trevor is able to get a head start, but the police run his car off the road during the course of the pursuit, and Trevor dies. In her grief, Freya suffers a miscarriage and nearly bleeds to death until Danny finds her and takes her to the hospital. Hesitantly, Danny reveals the identity of Freya's mother to her. Realising the stigma now hanging over her, due to her mother's reputation and her own pregnancy, Freya decides to run away to the city. Danny forces her to take his life's savings to support herself and accompanies her to the train station to see her off, where they pledge their friendship to one another and promise to keep in touch. Later that day Danny travels to their favourite hangout spot and carves Freya's, Trevor's, and his name into a rock, as his adult self informs the audience that he will never see Freya again.
Danny's history continues in the film Flirting (1991).
Music
The main theme used in the film is The Lark Ascending by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. At a 2005 special event screening in Sydney, director John Duigan stated he chose the piece as he felt it complimented Danny's adolescent yearning.
