Somersault (2004)

Excellent but underrated film

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

For such a slight story, this film packs a punch, and that has a lot to do with its star, Abbie Cornish.Abbie Cornish plays Heidi who runs away from home after coming between her mother and her boyfriend. Heidi is sixteen and pretty enough to attract the attention of just about every male she meets, and she knows it. However, she confuses sex for love at every turn, and it leads her to encounters that range from confusing to dangerous.After travelling to Jindabyne from Canberra, she eventually meets Joe played by Sam Worthington, the son of a local farmer. She is attracted to him, but he too is struggling with his sexual identity. Along the way, Heidi also meets people who are genuinely kind to her and are drawn to her innocent and essentially gentle nature."Somersault" is about a journey, both physical and spiritual. In a way, "Somersault" reminds me of another Australian film, "Tom White", starring Colin Friels. Although the hero of that film leaves home for different reasons, he also has new experiences and meets new people that change his outlook on life.Abbie Cornish is amazing in this film. Maybe other actresses could have been successful in the part, but Abbie Cornish as Heidi is not only beautiful, but also projects a unique stillness – she doesn't need to do much or say much because people react to her. In fact, writer/director, Cate Shortland, tells the story as much through visuals as through dialogue – in other hands, scenes such as the lingering shots of red gloves against the bleached-out landscape could be pretentious, but here, they help define Heidi's enquiring nature.Cate Shortland asked a lot from Abbie Cornish, and she gave it in an uninhibited performance. There is a fair amount of nudity in "Somersault", and although it doesn't seem gratuitous, I feel the film would have been just as strong without it. Of course it adds a certain frisson – mainly because nudity, even after the cinematic excesses of the last 50 years, still makes mainstream audiences feel uncomfortable.Whether you agree with that or not, this film affects you. It features two stars on the rise who give life to characters we don't want to say goodbye to, and although the ending seems sad, it also feels right.

I think this film talks about many things without saying that much.The elegance and equilibrium between sound and silence makes it sweet and realistic, with a touch of poetry in the story telling.The story, through the character of a young girl who is learning about life itself, talks about human relationships and how difficult we human beings get to connect with other people.The way is told makes it so realistic that is unfair to compete with any other story that can look similar, because it would win.Important to mention the very fine acting, which could not be other way since the whole film has been managed with delicacy and precision.Smart and beautiful. Not a love story, not another stupid empty drama story. Not a great film, but a film you wouldn't regret, because there's no mediocrity in it.

This drama about a teen runaway rarely moves beyond clichés. Cornish is good if somewhat bland as the runaway who desperately seeks a man who'll take of her. Worthington is disappointing as a man Cornish meets. Not only does it seem like he's simply reading his lines, but his delivery is so rapid that it's hard to understand him, given his Australian accent. His character here is confusing. Although he's cool to Cornish's overtures, he gets angry when she shacks up with other guys. He's also confused about his sexual orientation. This is the first feature film of writer-director Shortland, and she seems unsure of herself.

As the credit rolled to indicate the end of the movie on my TV I was feeling quite rewarded by this work. I had some memories of the title when it was on our big screens in Sydney but somehow did not go to see it despite some good reports as something rather special. Well it has been very special for me. I just read a few comments I as was curious how the rest of the English speaking world felt about it. I was glad to see some I found well expressed intelligent and positive . Others, well others, in a democratic world, are to be expected to be anything. In such forum we're all expert aren't we! Yes I did enjoy very much this effort, I always worry a little about typical Australian movies, but I found this one delivering something special as human experience and experiment, told simply but with strong statements. Told with plenty of time for the viewer to include her or himself in it and therefore think as if also concerned with the development of the situation. I was rather amused as the so called "kissing" episode that actually started the whole saga, am I really mistaking in thinking otherwise,more in the region of coitus interruptus. May be it's just me, but I did not think it was just kissing matter! And in this subject I wander why some comments bothered to describe the guy in a very derogatory manner, after all he was the mum's guy and whoever he would have been in this age range would not have mattered very much more. If you had a good meal but one more nice dish is served, would you pass on? I guess there are different answers to this but I'm thinking of the realistics and honest ones. Just the same the story often get you places but keeps away from the predictable or graphic outcomes. Yes it's full of beauty and poetry against the rough language and natural human environment. And I did like all this!