Somersault (2004)

After making a misjudged advance towards her mother's boyfriend 16-year-old Heidi (Abbie Cornish) flees her home for the small Australian ski town of Jindabyne. Entranced by the startling beauty of the wintry landscapes and falling snow she begins to create a new life for herself. With little money or practical experience she accepts a job at a petrol station and finds lodging with Irene (Lynette Curran). When she falls for Joe (Sam Worthington) the son of a wealthy local farmer her self-destructive tendencies re-surface and her fragile new world threatens to come tumbling down. An erotic lyrical depiction of a young girl s sexual awakening SOMERSAULT is a breakthrough debut for both its director and its star.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 876964000291 Manufacturer No: 10029 Product Description

good as far as it goes

A very good film about a sensitive subject. I was in a relationship with a person like Heidi's character in the film once, who came out of similar circumstances. Only it didn't have a happy ending like this film. The director/writer wants to make it a coming of age story but a person like Heidi has a personality disorder, close to borderline personality one might guess, and probably based on someone the director knows.

You don't grow out of this sort of personality so easily. It's touched on when the boyfriend finds her in her apt with two boys and she claims she did it because she felt neglected. The way she comes back at him when he suggests she has a problem is typical of this personality (and she was right of course, that he had a problem too). This sort of Lolita relationship doesn't take place in a vacuum. In reality it would take two people a long time to get over this, and most likely the girl would continue acting out for many years to come, perhaps into her late 20s or until she sought therapy.

So four stars for a very poignant portrayal of a kind of personality that goes beyond the norm, and of entanglements that occur when another sort of personality comes along. One star off for the pseudo-happy ending, where she goes home to her mother and it appears everything will be OK, which rings false.

Fiction takes license with these things but the director seems to be striving for emotional realism. In real life the same patterns would most likely be re-enacted again and again over many years.

Still this is a film well worth watching, esp for anyone who knows someone like Heidi. Or is like Heidi themselves.
August 5, 2008

People Trying To Find Themselves

This is a pretty good movie overall I thought. I caught it on the Sundance channel.

It's about a teenage girl who gets into a big argument with her mother and ends up running away from home.

In that town where she runs away to she ends up being sort of like 'the girl from the wrong side of the tracks' for awhile. At such a young age this can be very harmful.

This movie reminds us that with personal relationships everyone has issues going on. Besides the teenage runaway her main boyfriend has some deep issues going on. Her mother has some problems. The lady who gives her a room to stay in has some major problems. Etc..

She had some problems along the way but fortunately enough good things happened that everything turned out sort of ok. It's a more or less positive story but with a somewhat inconclusive ending. We can at least assume that this girl will look back on her adventure with some happy memories and learning experiences.

We know in real life that when a young girl runs away from home by herself many things can happen. Bad things that is. If the worse that could happen is the things in this movie that would be great.

Jeff Marzano

For Sale

The Stratosphere Girl

Open Your Eyes
April 28, 2008

One of the better "coming of age" films of recent years

Somersault is directed by Cate Shortland (Flower Girl, Joy), and stars Abbie Cornish (Candy). Sam Worthington (Thunderstruck), Erik Thomson (All Saints), Anne Louise Lambert (Lillian's Story), and Leah Purcell (Fallen Angels TV series) appear in supporting roles. The band Decoder Ring performs the film's soundtrack. ***

Somersault follows the life of a teenage girl named Heidi, who at the age of sixteen, filled with emotions and angst, and tensions between her and her mother, retreats from her home life to a resort village. It's here that she meets a farmer's son that gains her curiosity - however he has emotional issues and difficulties, and is in the midst of his own identity crisis. ***

It's a shame Somersault will probably never get the proper credit, because this film is an underrated gem that should get a wider audience. The movie is well-made, well-shot, and its star and supporting cast ensure that the viewer stays with the movie from the opening credits, right down to its conclusion 110 minutes later. It's an incredible film, certainly worthy of more than the cult following it has gained so far. ***

Where Somersault shines brightest is its leading lady. Abbie Cornish gives a phenomenal performance as Heidi, our heroine. Cornish brings this character to life beautifully, creating a multi-dimensional angst-ridden teen who faces numerous challenges, both within herself and with outside obstacles, including her mother. She owns this movie and makes the character all her own. Supporting cast members also give good performances, but it's Cornish's acting skills that have won the movie a plethora of awards - all of which is it worthy of. ***

Also worth mentioning is the cinematography, and the usage of colors/shades throughout the movie. The movie is so well-shot and orchestrated from start to finish - the camera crews and editors definitely knew what they were doing here. Top it all off with excellent music selections by Decoder Ring, and you've got a movie that both looks and sounds fantastic. ---

Image And Sound:

I was sent a screener copy, which had no negative visual issues. However it is a screener, and therefore not necessarily indicative of the final released product.

Special Features:
I was set a screener that was a very bare-bones issue - so much so that it didn't even have chapters or menus. Like with image quality, the screener is not indicative of the final released product.

Final Words:

An underrated gem of a movie, it's a shame Somersault hasn't yet found mainstream success. As far as "teenage girls coming of age" movies go, this is one of the finest this reviewer has seen in quite some time. Strongly recommended! March 28, 2008

Defining Sensory Experiences As We Become Aware Of Them

This is a sharp film. As I interpet it, it is a film about people who are out of place. Each character has neither found what they are looking for nor decided what they are pursuing. It's a wonderful and familiar journey to watch.

The lead character, Heidi (played seamlessly by the actress Abbie Cornish), is a young person in search mode. She's not sure what she wants, but she is moved by her desires. Like me, she collects imagery. She carries with her a scrapbook of fragments of napkins, magazine pictures, written ideas, greeting cards, and other things torn from her travels. She carries them with her throughout her life to remember where she has been. The images may not give her clarity and they may not help her determine where she's going to next, but they help her not forget the beauty she glimpsed in memorable moments that have disappeared.

Heidi starts the movie by being caught making out with her mother's boyfriend. This leads her to leave home and to begin looking for work and a place to live on her own. Prematurely, she has to define her world, her work, and her social structures on her own, with very little exposure to or knowledge of the complexities of those important matters.

This film is interested in intelligently exploring, watching, and capturing developing sensory drives and cognitive interpretations. The film has been controversial because of it's candid sexual situations. But the controversy is misplaced. The sexual content is real and necessary for the high degree of intellectual investigation into the multi-layered honest stories.

In one scene, Heidi finds a storage room with a stranger's abandoned family photo albums and memorabilia. Like Heidi, we don't know any of the people. The images have no associative meaning to us. Yet we can sympathize with the human activity of carefully and painstakingly saving images, objects and ideas from our pasts. The scene asks the viewer: What do we keep? How do we arrange it? What memories do we take care to frame?

As Heidi asks in the film, the film is an exploration of this question:

"What do you do if you like someone?"

And what do we do with objects that have emotional content for us personally?

What do we see? What do we feel? What do we taste, hear, and smell? How do they all combine into intoxicating cocktails?

The cinematography regularly asks the question: What is out of focus? What is clear?

In a world with so many non-sensory and invisible rules, how do we weigh those rules against clear and compellingly pleasant sensations?

The movie also asks, "What does it mean to say, 'I love you.' " Why is it that so many people hesitate to say those words? What do the words mean? What do those words limit? What do those words define?

In one scene, Heidi does something intentionally to hurt herself. As with anyone who hurts themself, we don't know all the reasons why, but we can probably infer some of the reasons fairly accurately. And we are sometimes defined by how we respond to those incidents.

This movie is great. It's worth full attention and consideration. It's worth repeat viewings.

Toward the end of the film, as Heidi's failures cascade, she takes a walk and glimpses her friend's younger brother, a boy with Asberger's Syndrome, a dysfunction that inhibits empathy - the ability to read and relate to others' visual and verbal emotional signals. The movie is about learning more about the complexities of relationship bonds, emotional signals, and emotional responsibilities. It is an epic journey toward improving empathetic aptitudes. I loved this film. I'll be saving it and adding it to my scrapbook. February 22, 2008

coming of age movie from a female perspective

This movie resonated deeply with me as it will with most females but that's not to say that men cannot enjoy it as well. It's one of those films that both sexes will like but will view it differently. It's a haunting film about a 16 year old girl coming to terms with her sexuality and finding her way in life.

We first met Heidi as her mom's boyfriend sends her into the local bar to get her. Her mom is annoyed when Heidi shows up (a younger version of herself) as she apparently enjoys the company of fellow male patrons more then staying at home. Abby is annoyed at her mom for the way she acts with other men. Typical mother/daughter relations when the daughter starts to become a woman. But Heidi's first attempts at feminine wiles are inappropriate and have dire consequences. She's devastated by her own actions as well as her mother's reaction and decides to run away. Abby goes to a resort town where she thinks she can get a job from a guy she met. He had given her his card and told her to call if she was ever in the area but of course, he did not really mean it and I felt for her when she made this call. She is stuck in a town with no place to stay and she does the only thing she knows works (me thinks her mom has not been the best role model), let a man have sex with you in exchange for drinks, a place to stay - fill in the blank really. Heidi is in that very awkward stage between childhood and becoming a woman. The actress (Abby Cornish) plays her with amazing skill, her whole body language tells the story. Heidi soon hooks up with Joe (Sam Worthington) who also wants to "sleep" with her but she mistakes his backhanded kindness for love and calls every number in the town's phone book until she tracks him down. He ignores her. When they run into each other by accident and Joe does not acknowledge her, Heidi's face tells of immense heartbreak that only a teenager in love can experience. Of course, they end up back in bed but this quasi-relationship is doomed from the start. Heidi is devastated by the breakup and becomes even more self-destructive and goes back to trolling bars with disturbing consequences. Joe, of course, walks in at the worst point and things turn nasty. At this point, Heidi has no self worth and runs after Joe stark naked to no avail. Her behavior once again has consequences and she is kicked out of her flat. Heidi becomes spiteful to the one person who showed her true kindness. She is at a turning point in her life, she can continue her spiral downward or take responsibility for her actions. This time her walk around town is not filled with childlike curiosity but a more mature introspection. She returns to thank the woman who helped her before breaking down in tears and telling her the truth of things. Heidi's mother is called and arranges to come and bring her back home. The next time she runs into Joe, Heidi handles it with dignity. She has grown up. When we see her mother take her back home, there is hope for the future.

The scenes are shot beautifully with great usage of the landscape around them. The performances were magnificent in their honesty. This film spoke to the core of my emotions. It did not require a box of Kleenex although it did leave deep sadness in its wake, a kind of mourning for innocence lost as we reach adulthood and the embarassment over the things we have done as we make our way.
January 12, 2008

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