Teen passions lack punch
FILM
Galore (MA15+)
3 stars
Ashleigh Cummings, Lily Sullivan, Maya Stange
DIRECTOR RHYS GRAHAM
REVIEW PIER LEACH
Galore is an atmospheric debut narrative feature from Melbourne-based writer/ director Rhys Graham, a brooding coming-of-age story set in the days leading up to the 2003 Canberra bushfires.
A filmmaker who made documentaries Words From the City and Murandak: Songs of Freedom, Graham evokes a palpable, immersive sense of time and place in Galore - of lazy sunny summer days in the semi-rural Canberra hinterland where he grew up.
His story focuses on the intense friendship between two 17-year-old girls over a pivotal couple of weeks before the devastating fires, which are flagged by voiceover at the film's outset and glimpsed on the periphery.
But the bushfires are more symbolic of the passions simmering among his characters and of their wild, impulsive adolescent behaviour than anything more tangibly woven into the plot. In fact, the fires only truly come into play in the post-climactic final moments of the film, referred to early and used as a framing device.
The story is told from the perspective of Billie (Ashleigh Cummings, of the similarly themed TV series Puberty Blues), a provocative, emotionally needy girl who lives with her single, social worker mum Carrie (Maya Stange) and hangs out with her childhood best friend Laura (Lily Sullivan).
Over the summer holidays the girls ride their bikes and swim at the dam, work in a fast-food joint and party in the evenings. They share everything - including, secretly, Laura's boyfriend Danny (Toby Wallace), with whom Billie has been having a guilty, covert fling. Cummings is a strong screen presence and she is well balanced by Sullivan's quieter, more introspective Laura, who develops an attraction to one of Carrie's at-risk cases staying in a caravan in their backyard, Isaac (Aliki Matangi).
The pivotal point for all of them comes one evening, mid-way through the film, when Billie, drunk and impetuous, takes Laura, Danny and Isaac on a rash joyride that has consequences none of them can foresee.
It doesn't quite deliver the emotional heft it pitches for. It is a beautifully played out scene but Graham, who also wrote the screenplay, doesn't invest his characters with enough depth or endearment to make the film's denouement the devastating slap in the face he intends it to be.
Cummings particularly puts in an engaging performance but what drives and motivates each of the others remains frustratingly elusive. It is difficult to care about a bunch of self-involved teenagers when they give you no reason to.
The sense of adolescent recklessness is tangible; Graham captures it well. It's the consequences that don't resonate so strongly.
Galore is now screening.
