"Flirting"
                Reviewed by Linda Lopez McAlister
                  On "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM
                        January 30, 1993


    An enormously charming and enjoyable, award-winning Australian
film entitled "Flirting" opened last night at the Tampa Theater.
It's the second in a planned trilogy by writer/director John Duigan
about a boy's coming of age in the '60s in Australia (the first in the
series was called "The Year My Voice Broke") but you needn't have
seen the first film to enjoy "Flirting."   Now, in the second
installment, the hero, Danny Embling (played by a fine young actor
named Noah Taylor) is in mid-adolescence and ensconced at St.
Alban's, an extremely strict and authoritarian posh boy's school
somewhere in rural Australia where the Headmaster canes kids with
abandon, the teachers are uniformly doltish, and sports are the
most important thing in the boys lives (other than their
adolescent libidos).  There is, luckily for them and the plot, a
counterpart girls' school directly across the lake from St. Alban's
and the sexes are allowed to mix in highly structured and
ritualized (and chaperoned) circumstances such as debates, plays,
dances, and sporting events when the girls are bused in to
cheer for the boys' heroics.  Does this sound like a candidate to
be reviewed under the rubric women and film?  Not yet.  But in
fact, though the hero of the trilogy is Danny, one of the few boys
there who doesn't conform in this rah rah atmosphere, who is an
outsider and an intellectual with a wry and ironic take on life,
the film gives at least as much attention to the girls on the other
side of the lake who are by far the most interesting people on the
screen.

    Especially interesting is the one girl there who's at least as
intelligent and sophisticated as Danny and even more an outsider
because she is an African in this otherwise all-white school.The
daughter of a British mother and a Ugandan nationalist
academic father teaching temporarily in Australia while
Idi Amin comes to power back home, Thandiwe Adjewa (played by
Thandie Newton) is subjected to racist taunts and ostracism from
the "in crowd" at the school and is only befriended by the school's
unattractive grinds.  The leader of the racist snobs in the "in
group" is named Nicola Radcliffe (played to a tee by Nicole Kidman).
Thandiwe and Danny meet when both give unusual speeches on their
respective debate teams.  Thandiwe is the only one in the room
who catches the real meaning in Danny's heavily ironic presentation
while her own iconoclasm is less guarded and gets her into big
trouble with the prudish and conventional faculty.

    With an interracial pair of young lovers in this most
conservative of establishment settings, needless to say the
film is as much a commentary on the pervasive racism as it is on
gender relations.  The obstacles posed for this couple are
enormous and their frequently successful efforts to overcome them
are often hilarious.  I don't want to tell any more of the plot
because you'll want to enjoy it as it unfolds.

    The main joy of the film for me was the performances of the
three principals, and a practically perfect supporting cast.  While
both Noah Taylor and Nicole Kidman are young but seasoned profes-
sionals (thanks to early training in the Melbourne Youth Theater),
Thandie Newton was making her acting debut in this film.  She is,
in fact, of English and Ugandan descent and was, in fact, a British
schoolgirl who went to the auditions for this part dressed in her
real London schoolgirl uniform.  She is now studying archaeology and
anthropology at Cambridge, though after this fine start she intends
to continue her acting career as well.  Watch for her; you can start
by seeing "Flirting."

   For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.