In the first two minutes of director Craig Boreham’s feature film debut, we see a homemade bong put to use and two teenage boys in school uniform performing mutual masturbation to lesbian porn while dad cooks dinner in the kitchen.
Yes indeed, teenage kicks, but the film quickly morphs from a haze of cheap teen thrills into much more meaningful drama: a gutsy coming-of-age story that signals the arrival of a compelling new voice in queer Australian cinema.
A regrettable incident – let’s just say it too involves masturbation – instigated by the 17-year-old protagonist Miklós (Miles Szanto) tumbles into tragedy, when his older brother Tomi (Nadim Kobeissi) storms off and dies in a car accident.
Blaming himself, Miklós sets about doing things that might dull the pain. This includes expressing love where it isn’t reciprocated and, that old chestnut, hanging out with the Wrong Crowd.
“This was supposed to be my new family,” says Annuska (Shari Sebbens), Tomi’s heavily pregnant girlfriend, expressing an unsubtle feeling niggling at the core of the film. That anything, simply put, can go to shit at any point, and rarely are we fully equipped to deal with worst-case situations. Contextualised in the turbulence of adolescence, with such a vivid character at the heart of it, that message packs a punch.
Miklós is coming to terms with his sexuality and confronted with mixed feelings when his best friend Dan (Daniel Webber) starts dating a new girlfriend. His family do not exactly calm the waters, with Miklós’ largely absent father and a mother who wails about how he’ll never be half the man his brother was.
Bonnie Elliott’s lightly bobbing camerawork, well suited to the unstable-feeling nature of the drama, helps pull the film away from social realist impulses to a more stylistic pallette. Elliott recently gave These Final Hours its distinctive, stinky-hot look and Spear a rich meditative aesthetic. She is emerging — if she hasn’t already — as one of Australian cinema’s finest sharp eyes.
Top-notch editing from Adrian Chiarella and a drifty score by David Barber, which seems to rise like mist and seep into our consciousness, also bring cinematic flair to a story that could have felt like downtrodden naturalism. Boreham has honed his skills from almost two decades of experience making short films.
The cast are uniformly strong. Sebbens (whose credits include The Sapphires and TV’s Redfern Now), an ever-reliable presence, is tender and warming. In Teenage Kicks she has a sadness in her eyes, which are forlorn and distant; they seem to scan every situation for possible answers. Like the film, her character arrives at emotions rather than practical solutions.
In a demanding lead role, Szanto gives a brave baring-all performance, unpredictable but acutely balanced. He holds himself so well; the contradiction of an out of control character and an actor hitting all the right beats.
Boreham’s screenplay isn’t wired to show us Miklós’ life experiences in the context of anything particularly new in terms of plot points or story; the director’s brief isn’t narrative innovation. But his perspective, and the film’s, always feels fresh and interesting.
In recent years, there has been a growth of LGBT stories in Australian cinema, with features such as Holding the Man, Downriver, Cut Snake, 52 Tuesdays and the soon-to-be-released Drown as well as documentaries Ecco Homo and Remembering the Man. Teenage Kicks belongs to the upper crust of that cannon: a film that confronts the topsy-turvy world of adolescence with a deeply compelling style and spirit.
DOWNLOAD LINK
Google Drive || Direct link
Yes indeed, teenage kicks, but the film quickly morphs from a haze of cheap teen thrills into much more meaningful drama: a gutsy coming-of-age story that signals the arrival of a compelling new voice in queer Australian cinema.
A regrettable incident – let’s just say it too involves masturbation – instigated by the 17-year-old protagonist Miklós (Miles Szanto) tumbles into tragedy, when his older brother Tomi (Nadim Kobeissi) storms off and dies in a car accident.
Blaming himself, Miklós sets about doing things that might dull the pain. This includes expressing love where it isn’t reciprocated and, that old chestnut, hanging out with the Wrong Crowd.
“This was supposed to be my new family,” says Annuska (Shari Sebbens), Tomi’s heavily pregnant girlfriend, expressing an unsubtle feeling niggling at the core of the film. That anything, simply put, can go to shit at any point, and rarely are we fully equipped to deal with worst-case situations. Contextualised in the turbulence of adolescence, with such a vivid character at the heart of it, that message packs a punch.
Miklós is coming to terms with his sexuality and confronted with mixed feelings when his best friend Dan (Daniel Webber) starts dating a new girlfriend. His family do not exactly calm the waters, with Miklós’ largely absent father and a mother who wails about how he’ll never be half the man his brother was.
Bonnie Elliott’s lightly bobbing camerawork, well suited to the unstable-feeling nature of the drama, helps pull the film away from social realist impulses to a more stylistic pallette. Elliott recently gave These Final Hours its distinctive, stinky-hot look and Spear a rich meditative aesthetic. She is emerging — if she hasn’t already — as one of Australian cinema’s finest sharp eyes.
Top-notch editing from Adrian Chiarella and a drifty score by David Barber, which seems to rise like mist and seep into our consciousness, also bring cinematic flair to a story that could have felt like downtrodden naturalism. Boreham has honed his skills from almost two decades of experience making short films.
The cast are uniformly strong. Sebbens (whose credits include The Sapphires and TV’s Redfern Now), an ever-reliable presence, is tender and warming. In Teenage Kicks she has a sadness in her eyes, which are forlorn and distant; they seem to scan every situation for possible answers. Like the film, her character arrives at emotions rather than practical solutions.
In a demanding lead role, Szanto gives a brave baring-all performance, unpredictable but acutely balanced. He holds himself so well; the contradiction of an out of control character and an actor hitting all the right beats.
Boreham’s screenplay isn’t wired to show us Miklós’ life experiences in the context of anything particularly new in terms of plot points or story; the director’s brief isn’t narrative innovation. But his perspective, and the film’s, always feels fresh and interesting.
In recent years, there has been a growth of LGBT stories in Australian cinema, with features such as Holding the Man, Downriver, Cut Snake, 52 Tuesdays and the soon-to-be-released Drown as well as documentaries Ecco Homo and Remembering the Man. Teenage Kicks belongs to the upper crust of that cannon: a film that confronts the topsy-turvy world of adolescence with a deeply compelling style and spirit.
DOWNLOAD LINK
Google Drive || Direct link
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