The Movie: Babyteeth
The Director: Shannon Murphy
The Cast: Eliza Scanlen, Toby Wallace, Emily Barclay, Eugene Gilfedde, Essie Davis, and Ben Mendelsohn
The Story: Milla, a seriously ill teenager falls in love with a smalltime drug dealer, Moses, her parents worst nightmare.
The Review:
When it comes to originality, Shannon Murphy's first full length feature as a director seems to know no bounds. The story tears the typical family dynamic to shreds and gives it a heaping dose of reality with outlandish situations and decision making sprinkled in just for fun. Well, actually not just for fun, there's a heck of a lot of messaging in this movie about where we are as a culture, how we see parenting, how we see families, and how we see each other.
The real strength of the movie and what I enjoyed the most is the cast and the performances they deliver. I mean seriously folks, having Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis play the erratic yet completely loving and drug addicted and somehow fully functional yet not husband and wife is absolute genius. I will watch each of them play pretty much any role and putting them together on screen is some serious dream casting in my book. Throw in Eliza Scanlen who was impressive in the recent recreation of Little Women as the ill and ill fated daughter and you have a very strong foundation for success.
As the story played out, I had so many emotions and disagreements and inspirations and curiosities and by the time the end came along, I wasn't quite ready for it yet it was completely satisfying. I feel like I really got to know this family, what they were up to, and why they are who they are. This is one of those movies I would watch again so I could take a deeper dive and find even more discoveries buried deep into the storytelling. Overall, this is a job well done by everyone involved.
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