indulge in some quiet time

copyright ©1999-2000
DigsMagazine.com.

flick pick |  The Year My Voice Broke 1987 Directed + written by: John Duigan Starring: Noah Taylor, Loene Carmen, Ben Mendelsohn Language: English Look for it at the video store under: drama, foreign [Australia]  Watch it when you’re in the mood for something: nostalgic The verdict: ½ / 5 the rating system explained

Plot synopsis It’s the early 1960s, and Danny Embling is a gawky adolescent living in a tiny little Australian town, in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. Danny’s nursing a gargantuan crush on the slightly older Freya, who’s been his best friend since childhood and has, of late, been looking mighty fetching. Freya’s a bit of a tomboy and a wild spirit at heart, and though she loves Danny dearly, it’s as a friend and true soulmate, not as a potential boyfriend. When Freya catches the eye of the local bad boy – a somewhat demented rugby player by the name of Trevor – and begins running around town with him, she becomes the subject of much local gossip. Danny’s overcome with jealousy, and no amount of attempting to telepathically communicate his love for her (this he endeavors to accomplish by pressing her picture to his chest and her panties to his forehead while he lays in bed, focusing his thoughts in her direction) will tear Freya away from Trevor. Then Freya discovers she’s pregnant, and Danny has to figure out a way to push his resentfulness aside in order to help out his friend.

Review You know, there’s not a whole lot I miss about being a teenager. I don’t miss the bad hair, the awkward body, the pettiness of peers, the inconvenient zit outbreaks. But I do miss how it felt to be absolutely certain that no one in the history of the world had ever felt things as deeply and completely as you did on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes I forget now, when I’m listening to thirteen year olds talk about their seemingly small traumas, that problems such as "omigod – I’ve got an unrequited crush on my best friend" can seem like the end of the world, not because teens are silly and superficial, but because dammit, they just feel so passionately about, well, everything. Writer/director John Duigan just seems to really get that about teenagers -- The Year My Voice Broke, like it’s terrific sequel Flirting, stands out from your standard teen movie fare by doing a very realistic job of capturing exactly how it feels to be an adolescent, and refusing to dumb down the main characters just because they happen to be young. The stars look like real teenagers, and talk like real people – which shouldn’t be as remarkable and unusual an occurrence in the movie world as it is – and Noah Taylor, in particular, embodying the very quintessence of bumbling teen geekdom as Danny, is superb. — reviewed by Y. Sun 

---------------------------> lounge . nourish . host . laze . home .