Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Forgotten Movies, July 5, 2011




FLIRTING (1992, John Duigan) is about two teenagers at private schools in Australia in the 1960s, a white boy and an African girl, who fall in love.

The boy, Danny (Noah Taylor), is awkward, a stutterer, the target of jokes from some of his classmates although he is brighter than most of them.

The girl is Thandiwe (Thandie Newton), pretty, smart, attracted to Danny because he possesses a sense of humor and a willingness to be different, to rebel. She first sees him during a get-together between their schools. Not long after, they are on opposing debate teams, and carry on a flirtation by disagreeing with the arguments of their own sides.

Nicole Kidman plays an older classmate, a snob at first, who is not the character you expect. In fact, few things about this film are what you expect. This is a follow up to the film THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE. Although this film would appear to be about race, it is about growing up in a difficult place in a difficult time. Charming movie.

For more forgotten movies, please see Todd Mason's blog.

8 comments:

Jerry House said...

Sounds really interesting. I'll be on the lookout for it.

Ann Summerville said...

Fun post.
Ann

Charles Gramlich said...

Must have been one of Kidman's first roles eh?

pattinase (abbott) said...

I think so. Maybe one before this?

Paul D Brazill said...

I really like that film and The Year My Voice Broke even more so. I think NK did BMX Bandits before this.

Todd Mason said...

One of the first for both the leading women.

iluvcinema said...

I have only seen snippets of this film but was always intrigued to see it. Definitely on the must watch list!

Iren said...

BMX Bandits was her first film.... and it's a lot of fun. I do have the recent Bluray of it which looks great and I would love to hear what an 11 or 13 year old of today would think of it.

I saw Flirting on the big screen when it came out and enjoyed it. I also think that Noah Taylor is an under rated actor, I love his turn in He Died with a Fafal in his Hand.