Why you can trust 12DOVE
Filled with brusque tenderness and dusty beauty, director Warwick Thornton’s first feature (Camera D’Or winner at Cannes last year) is a fine and moving example of outback neorealism.
Tracing the near-wordless romance of two troubled Aboriginal teenagers, it’s filled with startling, incongruously lovely images: the austere bush landscapes and daring, jarring sound design are as eloquent as its lovers are tongue-tied.
Sensitive, naturalistic performances also pull you in tightly, particularly non-pro Rowan McNamara’s raw, impulsive Samson, pitch-perfect against Marissa Gibson’s stoical, life-whacked Delilah.
Thornton, himself an indigenous Australian, presents the poverty, petrol huffing and near-hopelessness of their lives with watchful clarity, but also humour and compassion.
There’s a bumpy, wholly unexpected dip into melodrama along the way, but the film’s commitment to its characters, and its sheer emotional heft, carries you along regardless.
Kate is a freelance film journalist and critic. Her bylines have appeared online and in print for GamesRadar, Total Film, the BFI, Sight & Sounds, and WithGuitars.com.
The Inside Out 2 panic attack scene is one of the best depictions of anxiety ever – and something Pixar director Kelsey Mann is incredibly proud of: "I couldn't be happier"
When making Kingdom Hearts, the "one thing" RPG icon Tetsuya Nomura "wasn't willing to budge on" was a non-Disney protagonist
The Witcher fans in shambles after a new book reveals just how old Geralt really is