Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Quiet, appealing ways of 'Flirting' Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 15:30:30 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE;ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT;MOVIES \HD Quiet, appealing ways of 'Flirting' \BY Gary Arnold \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES "Flirting" is an appealing but somewhat complacent sequel to one of the better Australian films of recent years: "The Year My Voice Broke," a 1987 comedy/tear-jerker about adolescent infatuation and heartache. John Duigan, the writer-director, evidently plans a semiautobiographical trilogy revolving around a small-town boy named Danny Embling. Danny, the son of a hotel and pub owner in a picturesque wheat-growing valley of New South Wales, is played in both movies by the curiously saturnine Noah Taylor, who looks as if he might mature into a dandy Count Dracula. The original introduced Danny in 1962 as a scrawny, bullied schoolboy of 14. He ate his heart out over an elusive pal of 16, Freya, who was caught up in a doomed teen-age romance with the wildest kid in town, portrayed with flamboyant goofiness by Ben Mendelsohn. The pictorially expansive setting of the original film gives way to cloistered, nocturnal motifs in "Flirting," in which Danny reappears as a boarding school misfit and snob, circa 1965. Still scrawny and bullied, he gets to carry another torch, this time for a proud, lovely Ugandan named Thandiwe Adjewa (newcomer Thandiwe Newton), who arrives at a neighboring girls school and fixes on Danny as the only guy who might be brainy and sneaky enough to justify her curiosity. Unfortunately, it remains to be seen if her hunch is a correct one. Danny ought to be dazzled by Thandiwe in certain respects, but Mr. Duigan emphasizes romantic brooding and perusal at the expense of conversation. His alter-ego seemed more articulate at the age of 14. Perhaps Thandiwe inhibits him by casually mentioning that she's met Jean-Paul Sartre, Danny's literary hero. Nevertheless, it appears that he could make more of an effort to hold up his end of a budding, poignantly abbreviated relationship. In several scenes, you get the impression that Thandiwe forgets to wind him up. Mr. Duigan has begun to linger a bit suspiciously over his own tender, evocative nuances. The liveliest aspect of "Year" was its blunt, tangy sense of authenticity about teen-age mating rituals and frustrations. That flair hasn't vanished in "Flirting." Indeed, it finds some freshly amusing corroboration in scenes of classroom, dormitory and coed life as regimented at strictly conformist St. Alban's. But the Embling saga appears to be softening on its creator as Danny slouches toward university age. Perhaps it's better if one enters unfamiliar with the original film. The sense of deja vu when another sweetheart slips out of Danny's passive grasp gets slightly comical if you recall "Year." Nicole Kidman, slightly disguised behind a stern countenance and fall of blondish red hair, takes some of the curse off her ridiculous "Far and Away" performance by reminding you that she has range and versatility. Cast as a senior girl who appears to personify snootiness, she makes a delightful impression revealing a hidden, eccentric, sympathetic private side to Thandiwe after taking a protective interest in her romance with Danny. There's also a winning repressed personality among Danny's classmates: Bartholomew Rose as the frowning, solicitous Gilbert, a seething romantic who gravely advises his friend to "remember her needs as well as your own" and unburdens himself of 20-page letters when he finally latches on to a girlfriend to call his own. The final installment of Mr. Duigan's cinematic trilogy will evidently find Danny as a university student in Paris, where he may or may not meet Sartre face-to-face and savor reunions with Freya and Thandiwe. It would be a blessing if he's grown more talkative by that time, in either French or Australian. ***** TWO AND ONE-HALF STARS TITLE: "Flirting" RATING: No MPAA rating (adult content) CREDITS: Written and directed by John Duigan RUNNING TIME: About 105 minutes MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM