FilmFest Australia — A–Z of films

Michod has created a deeply pessimistic but fascinating world lit by excellent cinematography and set to a moody score.

Jucy may at times take on the ramshackle amateurishness of the play in which Jackie and Lucy appear – but it more than makes up for this with an enthusiasm and vibrancy that ensures its judiciously brief duration breezes by.

A joyous genre mash-up of John Hughes-style adolescent anxieties and drill-bit depravities (call it 'torture prom'), all married in McLeavy's wonderfully unhinged turn as a pretty-in-pink princess of perversion.

In taking on such a huge subject, Oranges And Sunshine acquits itself well.

The cast do a splendid job of portraying the rough and tumble inhabitants of the mining town, each with their own problems and desires.

For the first half an hour, the tension bubbles along nicely... but the further into the runtime we ride, the more the cliches stack up.

The director manages to craft some distinctive and atmospheric set pieces.

What impresses most is Lamont's intelligent and absorbing approach to her material.

Anna Howard's cinematography is never anything less than stunning in its starkness.

When the film's romantic and more cathartic strands start to emerge half way through, it nestles into the perfect smug of the sentimental and jagged edges the film previously creates for itself.

One feels one is exploring a potentially interesting scenario in the company of the wrong group of people.

Really quite an old fashioned film about what happens when an ugly incident transforms the dynamic within a high school that seems entirely free of adult influence.

This is a shocking, visceral work. There are moments of humour, here and there, but it is the gallows laughing.