Flirting

Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Movie?
Review: Oh, thank god somebody somewhere decided to put this out on dvd. I am a movie fanatic and this is my favorite film of all time. Now all I need to make my life complete is for John Duigan to make the third film.

Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Movie?
Review: Oh, thank god somebody somewhere decided to put this out on dvd. I am a movie fanatic and this is my favorite film of all time. Now all I need to make my life complete is for John Duigan to make the third film.

Rating:
Summary: Love without Bounds
Review: Really a superb, charming, and deep coming of age movie. When I first saw the dvd box, I had no interest at all to see this. I thought the cover was sort of tacky and my first impression of the film was that of a corny teen comedy. Needless to say, I saw this on tv and was really amazed how good this movie was. Probably the most impressive aspect of "Flirting" was the grace of the script and how well all the young actors and actresses performed. Noah Taylor and Thandie Newton were just outstanding and really believable. I really enjoyed Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts also in their supporting roles. It was really great to see all these big names in roles before they made it big. Much respect to director and writer John Duigan. Cameron Crowe has stated that Noah Taylor is one of his favorate actors and you can definately see that he has to be a fan of Duigan's too. I was more amazed to learn that "Flirting" was a sequel and even more amazed when I watched the previous film, "The Year My Voice Broke."

Rating:
Summary: Love without Bounds
Review: Really a superb, charming, and deep coming of age movie. When I first saw the dvd box, I had no interest at all to see this. I thought the cover was sort of tacky and my first impression of the film was that of a corny teen comedy. Needless to say, I saw this on tv and was really amazed how good this movie was. Probably the most impressive aspect of "Flirting" was the grace of the script and how well all the young actors and actresses performed. Noah Taylor and Thandie Newton were just outstanding and really believable. I really enjoyed Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts also in their supporting roles. It was really great to see all these big names in roles before they made it big. Much respect to director and writer John Duigan. Cameron Crowe has stated that Noah Taylor is one of his favorate actors and you can definately see that he has to be a fan of Duigan's too. I was more amazed to learn that "Flirting" was a sequel and even more amazed when I watched the previous film, "The Year My Voice Broke."

Rating:
Summary: The movie was great.
Review: Thandie Newton is a great actress. She stole the show with her performance as the only black in a predominately white environment. Her character couldn't isoloate herself from the rest but she couldn't let her guard down. I hope to see her in more films.

Rating:
Summary: Teenage love story with some depth
Review: This Australian film is a truly touching film regarding love and human passions. Thandiwe is a lovely Ugandan student in an all-girl's boarding school in 1965, and she has to deal with both the blatant racism she's confronted with and the political turmoil in her country. Danny is an Australian at the all-boy's school across the lake whom she develops an interest in, and then a relationship.

This film is about a lot more than clumsy sex among teenagers; it's about loss, honor, repression, and desires. It is indeed a very moving tale. And it features an early performance by Nicole Kidman in which she does a far better job than her later work.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect film
Review: This is certainly one of the finest examples of a coming of age picture, the first time I saw it I was quite literally shocked in every scene how true to life the dialogue was. The only place I have seen teen dialogue anywhere near as accurate is in the ill-fated TV drama My So-Called Life. Though his directing was marvelous, I think Duigan's writing is the most impressive. Newton and Taylor are spectacular and I have no words for their performances.

I disagree somwhat however with some of my fellow reviewers. I think the ending is fantastic and hopeful, really a sweet goodbye kiss of an ending. Also the love scene (where they don't kiss) seems absolutely perfect. The only reason I think anyone could possibly think it is not just how these things happen has been seduced by the formulaic nature of sex scenes rubber stamped into existence by Hollywood. The, yes, the genius which it took to write that scene is harrowing. Knowing these characters, knowing the situation leading up to it, the scene is soft, and delightful. I am still floored that someone could capture a scene so true that you feel it must have happened to you, and it is one of several like that. Unlike one other reviewer, I think Flirting is much better at this then The Year My Voice Broke which was very good, but Taylor had not come into his own as a young actor yet. Also to the person who said teenagers are too immature for this, I disagree. Some of them? Sure, undoubtedly. But to those who love watching the rerun marathons of My So-Called Life on MTV this will come as a breath of fresh air, a sense of relief that Jason Katims isn't the only person in the world who can write teen dialogue. There is in fact someone much better, John Duigan.

The only bad thing I can say about this film is that MGM marketing should hide their heads in shame for the cover design of both the DVD and the VHS tape. The DVD in particular is embarrassing. The fact that Kidman's name and her name alone is the one above the title is shocking even to a person like me who normally doesn't get that upset by unashamed materialism. Kidman does a fine, unremarkable job as a supporting character. She's barely in the first half at all and is quite forgettable. The supporting role of Gilby, Taylor's pretentious friend (played by Bartholomew Rose) is much more worthy of note.

I am so excited that this is coming to DVD (in widescreen no less which unfortunately The Year My Voice Broke did not) I can't express myself. I know there is a lot out there to buy, a lot out there we want and limited funds but...just trust me and buy this. If you remember being a teenager, if you remember how hard it was, and the moments that were really beautiful...Or if you simply can recognize the magnificence of the beautiful, earth-shattering event that occurs when two people look into each other's eyes and really see the person looking back at them....then buy it. You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect film
Review: This is certainly one of the finest examples of a coming of age picture, the first time I saw it I was quite literally shocked in every scene how true to life the dialogue was. The only place I have seen teen dialogue anywhere near as accurate is in the ill-fated TV drama My So-Called Life. Though his directing was marvelous, I think Duigan's writing is the most impressive. Newton and Taylor are spectacular and I have no words for their performances.

I disagree somwhat however with some of my fellow reviewers. I think the ending is fantastic and hopeful, really a sweet goodbye kiss of an ending. Also the love scene (where they don't kiss) seems absolutely perfect. The only reason I think anyone could possibly think it is not just how these things happen has been seduced by the formulaic nature of sex scenes rubber stamped into existence by Hollywood. The, yes, the genius which it took to write that scene is harrowing. Knowing these characters, knowing the situation leading up to it, the scene is soft, and delightful. I am still floored that someone could capture a scene so true that you feel it must have happened to you, and it is one of several like that. Unlike one other reviewer, I think Flirting is much better at this then The Year My Voice Broke which was very good, but Taylor had not come into his own as a young actor yet. Also to the person who said teenagers are too immature for this, I disagree. Some of them? Sure, undoubtedly. But to those who love watching the rerun marathons of My So-Called Life on MTV this will come as a breath of fresh air, a sense of relief that Jason Katims isn't the only person in the world who can write teen dialogue. There is in fact someone much better, John Duigan.

The only bad thing I can say about this film is that MGM marketing should hide their heads in shame for the cover design of both the DVD and the VHS tape. The DVD in particular is embarrassing. The fact that Kidman's name and her name alone is the one above the title is shocking even to a person like me who normally doesn't get that upset by unashamed materialism. Kidman does a fine, unremarkable job as a supporting character. She's barely in the first half at all and is quite forgettable. The supporting role of Gilby, Taylor's pretentious friend (played by Bartholomew Rose) is much more worthy of note.

I am so excited that this is coming to DVD (in widescreen no less which unfortunately The Year My Voice Broke did not) I can't express myself. I know there is a lot out there to buy, a lot out there we want and limited funds but...just trust me and buy this. If you remember being a teenager, if you remember how hard it was, and the moments that were really beautiful...Or if you simply can recognize the magnificence of the beautiful, earth-shattering event that occurs when two people look into each other's eyes and really see the person looking back at them....then buy it. You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: Different, Fresh, Eye-Popping
Review: Too tired of Hollywood's overdone coming-of-age fused + love themes? Well, Flirting, despite its superfluous title which almost misled me, is a complex film with a heavy touch of sincerity and authenticity. One of those rare films which really give the audience a creepy sensation of gaping at characters' on-going lives as if peeping from the small window of a dark room, the main "flirting" grows between 2 misfits from 2 worlds as distant as an all-boy school and an all-girl school sitting across a lake.

Wonderful acting here by Noah Taylor who breathes the air of a stuttering outsider--Danny Embling, a much teased "geek" who finds solace in mental superiority in a conformitist boarding school setting. Also, before moving onto bigger things such as Beloved, Thandie Newton portrays a fiery Ugandan beauty very much ostracised by her racist surroundings. What nourishes the feeble threat that first hold the two lonely hearts together is their shared vision of intellectual, political, as well as sexual freedom. An odd romance springs between the two as they carry on subtle flirting on debate teams, across the lake as DAnny rows to another midnite rendezvous, and eventually an exploration of the body that is by no means marred by its intensity.

Certainly without the banal lightheartedness of jovial teen movies made too frequently in the U.S., director John Duigan masters the art of manipulating an audience in this 1991 film, also featuring a young Nicole Kidman, brilliant in her pivotal role of a supressed head girl carefully protecting the fragile young love she senses Danny and Thandiwe. Dark and deep into youthful souls, Flirting brings to mind serious matters such as Uganda's Idi Amin years. Our star-crossed young lovers never whisper the sweet word "love" into each other's ears, yet through every touch and every glimpse, the audience is led into a sweet realm of love in its purest form w/out being tainted by physical emphasis, but rather decorated with lavish strokes of reality--Danny and Thandiwe's compromise between lust and respect.