Wasted On The Young

This is the second of the two Aussie films I saw at this year's Sydney Film Festival. Surprisingly another film about teenagers and their troubles at school.

Most of the films I go see at the festival I do not know much about except what I read in the program. Some I have heard of and may know a great deal about. There are also some I see because I like the director, a writer and/or actor. Otherwise I go by the synopsis in the program. The synopsis of this film sounded intriguing and I thought I'd check it out. Sadly not all the films I see can be great. There is an interesting idea here but it is brought to the screen in a very uninteresting way. The film is centred around a guy, Darren and his step brother who come from different social levels at school. When a girl Darren likes goes missing he thinks his step brother was responsible and exacts revenge. The most interesting thing though is that director Ben Lucas has filmed the movie without any adults. It feels like no adults exist in this world. There are a couple of times you hear them make a off camera remark, but we never see any adults. I know what he is trying to say with this idea. That adults don't pay enough attention to their kids and when left alone can get up to all sorts of trouble. This idea falls apart when you have a scene at school involving violence and no teachers turn up to help put an end to it. I kind of like to find faults in good ideas. The plot does play out pretty typical and I found it a bit boring. You know where it is headed which would be OK if the journey there was any good. It also does not present anything new about teenagers and I think makes them seem more cliched.

The cast are mostly unknown young actors who have not done much before this. For some it is their first film. I did not think any of them were all that special and play their characters as the cliche dictates. Adelaide Clemens was the best as the girl who goes missing. Admittedly she gets the best character to work with so has more to do.

Judging by the reaction of the audience when I saw the film I think my response was very different. For me it just did not live up to its potential and so I found it very disappointing.