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Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(from the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival)

Directed/Written by: Cathy Randall
Starring: Danielle Catanzariti, Toni Collette, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Essie Davis, Russell Dykstra, Christian Byers, Jonny Pasvolsky

A Jewish girl at a preppie Sydney school at which she sticks out like a significant under-developer readies herself for a bat mitzvah ceremony. Pressured by her parents to invite friends to the reception, to dress appropriately and to choose between gorgonzola and King Island Blue, Esther and her braces would really just rather bring along her duckling, her twin brother and her math skills.

There’s definitely something Muriel’s Wedding about the Australian social outsider struggling to belong. And when she befriends the older, cooler, public schooler Sunni (Whale Rider‘s Castle-Hughes), a new world awaits, delivering Miss B. a chance to re-envision just whom Blueburger, E. would want to be.

The interplay between the twin siblings is truly fantastic. Their ability to be kids striving for a different sense of adolescence while attempting to understand the parenting they’re subjected to is both comedy and drama, and it’s entertaining either way. The teenage one-upsmanship that exists between these kids, as well as between Esther and the friends she forces upon herself, ponders the issues of peer pressure to its core. And, as the saying goes, “no one will be happy until someone pokes an eye out.”

A lot of films have tried to find the grace in how the high schooler is forced to fit in… somewhere, anywhere. This film, struggling itself to conform to contemporary conventions, celebrates those differences with the type of movie that has become known as quintessentially Australian. In defying the status quo and delivering an entertaining and engaging, if not enlightened, piece of cinema, kudos must go to Cathy Randall and co. As it’s not the type of film to traditionally win awards, hearts and laughs will have to do.

Photos courtesy of Lightning Entertainment

Filmography links and data courtesy of Internet Movie Database.