A story about breaking family and cultural cycles for a hopeful future, it is contemporary story of love, revenge, and triumph, a young man becomes torn between his unexpected love of acting and the disintegration of his family. Meanwhile his high school drama teacher must practice what she teaches if she is to succeed in her personal and professional life. imdb

I am moved.

When it comes to Australian films I will cheer for anything – hell, I was one of the handful of people whom actually saw 100 Bloody Acres – so I was prepared to cheer for this film.

Around The Block is the first feature length work for Australian writer/director Sarah Spillane and it screened at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, getting really positive reviews. It is also getting a limited theatrical release in the USA (WOO HOO!!) Her light touch with pathos and tragedy, the little touches of humour, the gentle way she sets the story in a particular time with old computers, cars and music make for an enjoyable movie experience.

The score (by Nick Wales) is wonderful, I may need to purchase it, very soon.

But that’s not why I now need to make buttery toast and hot tea to comfort myself.

Jack Thompson, Damien Walsh-Howling and all the support players are right on key. Actor, writer and ex-footy player Matt Nable as Liam’s dad is heart breaking. Mark Coles Smith (Beneath Hill 60) as Liam’s brother is angry and broken.

The young Indigenous cast are wonderful – inhabiting their roles in such a relaxed, low key way that it even affected the acting style of Christina Ricci, who plays their the duck-out-of-water drama teacher. There is an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald where both Ricci and Spillane discuss this as part of their experience in making the film.

Still …

The young lead, Liam, played by Hunter Page-Lochard is spectacular, but he has an awesome gene pool to draw from as the son of Stephen Page and former ballerina Cynthia Lochard. He plays his role low key, introspective, unsure and typically teenage except for two moments where he and the scenery (captured by cinematographer Martin McGrath) break out. He is a deadly dancer. But his world is falling apart.

And that’s it, that is why I am moved. And on to my second comforting cuppa as I write this. It’s the story.

The old saw is that there are just six stories in the world that we retell, in our own way, again and again. It is easy to see this story’s grandparents – Slumdog Millionaire, To Sir With Love, Dangerous Minds, even a little Do The Right Thing – mixed in with Hamlet, the play they perform, itself.

But it is our story. The Block in Redfern was where our country waged a war with itself. Sydney is an urban space that is not New York or London or Chicago and this film never forgets where it is from or whose tragedy this is. It is not chest thumping American tragedy, it is such an Australian story.

However, at the same time, it is universal. It is the same story that happens through all of time and in every culture.

Don’t miss seeing this.

the essentials

What: Around The Block screening, followed by Q&A with Director, Sarah Spillane, and Actor, Hunter Page-Lochard
When: 6:30pm Wednesday 25 June
Where: Limelight Cinemas Tuggeranong
Web: www.limelightcinemas.com.au/Movie/Around-The-Block