One, needless to say, could be the budding relationship between Sydney high schoolers Ellie and Abbie.
Monica Zanetti’s brand new movie is distinctively Australian without having to be annoying about any of it, steering away from tropes and bringing some big laughs
Ellie & Abbie celebrates love that is queer, familial, and intergenerational – in every its difference. Photograph: Cinema Australia.There are a couple of love tales in Monica Zanetti’s teen romcom that is queer, Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt).
One, needless to say, could be the romance that is budding Sydney high schoolers Ellie and Abbie. One other may be the affection that is intergenerational respect and solidarity that develops between these teens plus the queers that arrived before them – in specific, Ellie’s lesbian aunt Tara, who passed away into the 80s a long time before Ellie came to be. The two narratives wind around each other in a sweet and daggy dual helix.
Sophie Hawkshaw plays Ellie, a swotty college captain whoever companion is her mum (a harried and hilarious Marta Dusseldorp). Ellie is enthusiastic about trite Instagram affirmations about asking the world to abundance that is manifest and many more so together with her puckish yet interestingly earnest classmate Abbie (played by nonbinary star Zoe Terakes), who’s presently serving per week in detention for calling the key the C-word.
After Ellie arrives to her mum, her aunt Tara (Julia Billington) returns through the dead as being a “fairy godmother” to greatly help guide her in woman-loving ways. But there’s a bit of tradition surprise on both edges: Tara’s unsolicited and anachronistic dating advice revolves around references to KD Lang and Melissa Etheridge, while Ellie contends that she does not require any assistance because “there’s like five other homosexual young ones within my year”. She reckons she’s fine. with no distinctive from someone else.
Ellie’s living lesbian aunt, family members buddy Patty (the iconic Rachel home, whom you would understand from pretty much every Taika Waititi movie), does not do better at taking care of Ellie’s tender emotions, though she does offer a hot, cut-the-crap existence within the family members’s life.
Ellie and Abbie trailer
Zanetti, whom composed and directed the movie, cleverly plays using the indisputable fact that our queer predecessors paved just how for exactly how we reside now, but as people may be just as bumbling and away from touch as other people in terms of coping with teenagers. We might idolise OWLs (“older wiser lesbians”) but they’re only flightless, bug-eyed people all things considered. And besides, also in the exact same generation, every person’s experience is extremely various, as Ellie and Abbie’s stories expose. We don’t immediately “get it” unless we decide to try.
The romcom structure permits the movie to explore these various tensions with teasing fondness. Both love stories need certainly to hurdle over crossed cables and missed connections, and they’re given heart and humour. In specific, the real comedy brings some big laughs that balance the more substantial components of the storyline, whilst the banter between Abbie and Ellie deserves to drop in the real history regarding the romcom genre. There were many lesbian films marketed as comedies in the last few years (Duck Butter; The Feels) which are kind of low-key whimsical without actually being funny you laugh and even snort a little bit so it’s a relief to find one that actually makes. Bridie Connell is a standout right right here given that very strung schoolteacher skip Trimble, while Terakes provides equal components dweeb and heartthrob while the conscientious delinquent equestrian love interest. It’s a charmingly particular character i’ve never ever seen before when you look at the endless yearbook of senior school movie kinds.
Sophie Hawkshaw and Zoe Terakes in Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt). Photograph: Nixco
Earlier in the day in 2010, Ellie & Abbie ended up being initial Australian movie to open Mardi Gras movie event, also it’s impressed audiences at other festivals across the country, including this month’s Melbourne Queer film event. The movie is distinctively Australian without having to be irritating about any of it. Particularly in the well-trod turf of teenager movies, where in fact the hegemonic US highschool experience casts an extended shadow, it is refreshing to see a tale that plays towards the familiar talents associated with the genre without diluting its feeling of destination to ensure it is more palatable international. The movie clearly nods to Hollywood on occasion – there’s a reference that is cheeky The Breakfast Club, as well as in one very very very early scene an instructor chides the pupils for calling their formal a “prom” – but primarily the tale simply supplies a glimpse of Australian adolescence, full of L-plates and F-words, without contrasting it against whatever else.
The script shows the exact same finesse in composing queer life as one thing rich and distinctive; maybe perhaps not in comparison to a heterosexual norm, but nevertheless unique and significant. Certainly one of my pet peeves that are biggest in film and tv could be the trope for the character or relationship that “just so takes place become gay”, which people utilize being a shorthand to explain narratives that aren’t solely defined by their queerness, but which in fact does the alternative, building queer stories on a right mould and determining them by their departure from heteronormativity. Alternatively, Ellie & Abbie celebrates love that is queer, familial, and intergenerational – in most its difference. It’s good, it is various, plus it’s delightful.