Flirting (film)
Encyclopedia
Flirting is a 1991
Australia
n coming of age
film
about a romance
between two teenagers, written and directed by John Duigan
. It stars Noah Taylor
, who appears again as Danny Embling, a character from Duigan's 1987 film
The Year My Voice Broke
. It also stars Thandie Newton
and Nicole Kidman
. Flirting is the second in a planned trilogy
of autobiographical films by Duigan. It was also produced by Kennedy-Miller who made the Mad Max
trilogy. The film won the 1990 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film
.
in rural New South Wales
, Australia, in the hopes he won’t become a delinquent. The year is 1965 and it has been some time since Danny has had any romantic relationship with a girl (his former love, Freya, from The Year My Voice Broke
, left him at the end of the first film). Danny is the butt of jokes because of his stutter and long nose (for which he is nicknamed “Bird”). His only friend is Gilbert.
At a school rugby game, he meets and slowly becomes interested in Thandiwe Adjewa, a Ugandan-Kenyan-British girl (Ugandan father and Kenyan-British mother) attending the all-girls Cirencester Ladies’ College across the lake, while her father, a political activist, is lecturing at university in Canberra. They later meet at a debate between the two schools, and covertly during a school dance. She is punished for leaving the dance without permission and is given chores by the prefect, Nicola Radcliffe (Nicole Kidman
). Thandiwe is later befriended by Melissa and Janet (played by Naomi Watts
).
Throughout the course of the school year, they foster a budding romance, despite the overbearing regulations inflicted upon them - specifically racial politics and social conventions (Thandiwe is often regarded by the school authorities as rebellious and overtly sexual). After the performance of the musical, Danny introduces his parents to Thandiwe and her parents. They later decide to return to Uganda in response to the political turmoil there. Soon Thandwie decides to return too, and lies about her true departure date, in order to spend the night in a motel with Danny. They are discovered, leading to his expulsion. Thandiwe writes him letters regularly from Uganda - until one day one arrives from Nairobi saying she is safe there.
The film features one of the last appearances by Nicole Kidman
in an Australian-produced film before she made her transition to Hollywood; Kidman had previously met and worked with director Duigan on the Australian miniseries "Vietnam."
, Bathurst
, and Braidwood
New South Wales
. Parts of the film were filmed on location at St Stanislaus College
.
The song "With a Girl Like You
" is actually out of period, not being released until August 1966.
's Top 10 Best Films List of 1992. This movie ranked number 46 on Entertainment Weekly's
list of the 50 Best High School Movies.
The New York Times film review of 6 November 1992 commented:
The Washington Post of 20 November 1992 commented:
The film was also nominated for the following 1990 AFI Awards:
1991 in film
The year 1991 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*April 28 - Bonnie Raitt marries actor Michael O'Keefe in New York* Terminator 2: Judgment Day, became one of the landmarks for science fiction action films with its groundbreaking visual effects from Industrial Light & Magic.*November...
Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
about a romance
Romantic love
Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....
between two teenagers, written and directed by John Duigan
John Duigan
John Duigan, is an Australian film director.Duigan emigrated to Australia in 1961, having been born to an Australian father...
. It stars Noah Taylor
Noah Taylor
Noah George Taylor is an English-born Australian actor.-Early life:Taylor, elder of two boys, was born in London, England, the son of Maggie, a journalist and book editor, and Paul Taylor, a copywriter and journalist. Taylor's Australian parents returned to Australia when he was five, and he grew...
, who appears again as Danny Embling, a character from Duigan's 1987 film
1987 in film
-Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records....
The Year My Voice Broke
The Year My Voice Broke
The Year My Voice Broke is a 1987 coming of age story by director John Duigan, starring Noah Taylor, Loene Carmen, and Ben Mendelsohn. Set in 1962 in the rural Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, it was the first in a projected trilogy of films centred around the experiences of an awkward...
. It also stars Thandie Newton
Thandie Newton
Thandiwe Nashita "Thandie" Newton is a British actress. She has appeared in a number of British and American films, including The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II, Crash, Run, Fatboy, Run and W....
and Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
. Flirting is the second in a planned trilogy
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
of autobiographical films by Duigan. It was also produced by Kennedy-Miller who made the Mad Max
Mad Max
Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and revised by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland. The film stars Mel Gibson, who was unknown at the time. Its narrative based around the traditional western genre, Mad Max tells a story...
trilogy. The film won the 1990 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film
Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film
This page lists the winners and nominees for the AACTA Award for Best Film since its institution in 1958. The award is presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts , an organisation which promotes the Australian film industry. Since the 1958 Australian Film Awards the...
.
Plot
Danny Embling, now an awkward, underdeveloped 17 year old, has been sent away by his parents to the all-male St. Albans boarding schoolBoarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
in rural New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia, in the hopes he won’t become a delinquent. The year is 1965 and it has been some time since Danny has had any romantic relationship with a girl (his former love, Freya, from The Year My Voice Broke
The Year My Voice Broke
The Year My Voice Broke is a 1987 coming of age story by director John Duigan, starring Noah Taylor, Loene Carmen, and Ben Mendelsohn. Set in 1962 in the rural Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, it was the first in a projected trilogy of films centred around the experiences of an awkward...
, left him at the end of the first film). Danny is the butt of jokes because of his stutter and long nose (for which he is nicknamed “Bird”). His only friend is Gilbert.
At a school rugby game, he meets and slowly becomes interested in Thandiwe Adjewa, a Ugandan-Kenyan-British girl (Ugandan father and Kenyan-British mother) attending the all-girls Cirencester Ladies’ College across the lake, while her father, a political activist, is lecturing at university in Canberra. They later meet at a debate between the two schools, and covertly during a school dance. She is punished for leaving the dance without permission and is given chores by the prefect, Nicola Radcliffe (Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
). Thandiwe is later befriended by Melissa and Janet (played by Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...
).
Throughout the course of the school year, they foster a budding romance, despite the overbearing regulations inflicted upon them - specifically racial politics and social conventions (Thandiwe is often regarded by the school authorities as rebellious and overtly sexual). After the performance of the musical, Danny introduces his parents to Thandiwe and her parents. They later decide to return to Uganda in response to the political turmoil there. Soon Thandwie decides to return too, and lies about her true departure date, in order to spend the night in a motel with Danny. They are discovered, leading to his expulsion. Thandiwe writes him letters regularly from Uganda - until one day one arrives from Nairobi saying she is safe there.
Production
Although the story evokes universal themes of romance and love, it also examines the properties of the "Australian character": existential isolation (brought on by both geographical and environmental conditions) and strong cultural ties to Great Britain.The film features one of the last appearances by Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
in an Australian-produced film before she made her transition to Hollywood; Kidman had previously met and worked with director Duigan on the Australian miniseries "Vietnam."
Location
The movie was filmed on location in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Bathurst
Bathurst
-Places:In Australia:* Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia and the following things associated with the city** Bathurst Regional Council, the local government area for the Bathurst urban area and rural surrounds...
, and Braidwood
Braidwood
-Places:* Braidwood, New South Wales, Australia* Braidwood, South Lanarkshire, Scotland* Braidwood, Illinois, United States of America-People:* Thomas Braidwood , founder of a school for the deaf in Scotland...
New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
. Parts of the film were filmed on location at St Stanislaus College
St Stanislaus College (Bathurst)
St Stanislaus' College is a Roman Catholic, day and boarding school for boys, conducted by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul's priests and brothers...
.
Music
- "Proserpina" Written by John Duigan / Sarah de Jong.
- " (By the) Sleepy Lagoon" Performed by Harry James.
- "Wasps" Performed by Queensland Symphony OrchestraQueensland Symphony OrchestraThe Queensland Symphony Orchestra is an Australian orchestra, based principally in Brisbane in the state of Queensland.The QSO played its first concert on 26 March 1947, with the orchestra consisting of 45 musicians, conducted by Percy Code. John Farnsworth Hall was recruited from the Sydney...
. - "Johnny Get Angry" Performed by Joanie SommersJoanie SommersJoanie Sommers , is an American singer and actress with a long career of jazz, standards and popular material and extensive show-business credits...
. - "Tutti FruttiTutti Frutti (song)"Tutti Frutti" is a 1955 song by Little Richard, which became his first hit record. With its opening cry of "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bop-bop!" and its hard-driving sound and wild lyrics, it became not only a model for many future Little Richard songs, but also one of the...
" Written by Little RichardLittle RichardRichard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
/ Dorothy La Bostrie / Joe Lubin. - "I Just Wanna Make Love to You" Written by Willie DixonWillie DixonWilliam James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...
. - "The Moochie" Performed by Sidney BechetSidney BechetSidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
. - "With a Girl Like YouWith a Girl Like You"With a Girl like You" is a hit song by English band The Troggs. The song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 4 August 1966, where it remained for two weeks.-Song profile:...
" Performed by The TroggsThe TroggsThe Troggs are an English rock band from the 1960s that had a number of hits in UK and the US. Their most famous songs include, "Wild Thing", "With a Girl Like You", and "Love Is All Around"...
. - "Little Egypt" Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike StollerJerry Leiber and Mike StollerJerome "Jerry" Leiber and Mike Stoller were American songwriting and record producing partners. Stoller was the composer and Leiber the lyricist. Their most famous songs include "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock", "Kansas City", "Stand By Me" Jerome "Jerry" Leiber (April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011)...
. - "Big Bad JohnBig Bad John"Big Bad John" is a country song originally performed by Jimmy Dean and composed by Dean and Roy Acuff. Released in September 1961, by the beginning of November it went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and won Dean the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording.The song and its...
" Written by Jimmy Dean.
The song "With a Girl Like You
With a Girl Like You
"With a Girl like You" is a hit song by English band The Troggs. The song reached number one in the UK Singles Chart on 4 August 1966, where it remained for two weeks.-Song profile:...
" is actually out of period, not being released until August 1966.
Box Office
Flirting grossed $1,655,044 at the box office in Australia and $2,415,396 in the USA .Reception
With its complex characters, low-key atmosphere, and sumptuous cinematography, the movie was widely critically acclaimed. It was featured on Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
's Top 10 Best Films List of 1992. This movie ranked number 46 on Entertainment Weekly's
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
list of the 50 Best High School Movies.
The New York Times film review of 6 November 1992 commented:
- There is a kind of painless calm about "Flirting." The film is simultaneously attractive and just a little dull. Mr. Duigan avoids melodrama, which is all to the good. Yet his gift for the acutely observed commonplace detail is neither strong nor original enough to transform the movie into something comparable to so many similar, better films. The best things about "Flirting" are the performances. Ms. Newton is delightful as Thandiwe, who is far more sophisticated than Danny and wise enough never to let him know it. Mr. Taylor is also good, although the troubled Danny is not an easy character to play. He's virtually the generic artist-as-a-young-man. Nicole Kidman appears in a supporting role as one of Thandiwe's older classmates, who is less of a snob than she first appears.
The Washington Post of 20 November 1992 commented:
- The movie is full of wonderful scenes: Newton caught hiding in a boys' toilet stall as the unsuspecting lads come in to shower, a line of uniformed boys ritualistically facing a row of ballroom-gowned girls at a school dance, and so on. "Flirting" is also full of amusing rejoinders and comments: "Remember her needs as well as yours," suggests Taylor's friend with secondhand Kamasutra wisdom when Taylor heads toward an intended sensual tryst. "If you can give her pleasure, she'll be back for more."
Awards
The film received the following 1990 AFI Awards:- Best Film (Terry Hayes, Doug Mitchell, George Miller)
- Best Achievement in Editing (Robert Gibson)
- Best Achievement in Production Design (Roger Ford)
The film was also nominated for the following 1990 AFI Awards:
- Best Achievement in Sound (Antony Gray, Ross Linton, Phil Judd)
- Best Actor in Supporting Role (Bartholomew Rose)
- Best Achievement in Cinematography (Geoff Burton)
External links
- Entry for the film on the Australian Film CommissionAustralian Film CommissionThe Australian Film Commission was an Australian government agency with a mandate to promote the creation and distribution of films in Australia as well as to preserve the country's film history. It also had a production arm responsible for production and commissioning of films for government...
website - Flirting at the National Film and Sound Archive