Babyteeth

Take any of the characters, they all behave legitimately from their perspective, a result of their personal and social circumstance.

A teenage girl on chemo befriends a rogue, much to her parents dismay and their own dysfunctional relationship. A film about how we interact, with ourselves and with others. Beautifully performed, written and directed.

This movie is pure love. It captured everything. I am so grateful for art like this to exist and to remind us we are alive. I think it's the best music I've ever heard in a movie in years. It is a masterpiece because it used everything this very diverse form of art has to offer to deliver such a palpable, direct, honest, and real taste of the beauty inherent to life and love. I'm always shocked when I discover a movie like this, stunned by the clarity and the truth of the vision it offers. Watch it, live it. Thanks to everybody involved in this piece of art.

Well acted but very depressing.

Eliza Scanlan gives a fascinating performance as a young woman who's going through cancer treatment and falls for a drug addict who may or may not be good for her. Her parents (Essie Davis and Ben Mendelsohn) are dysfunctional and unraveling and have drug problems of their own. They don't like her daughter's boyfriend and under normal circumstances probably wouldn't tolerate him. But he's the only thing that brings their daughter some respite from the hell she's going through, so they sort of adopt him as their own.

"Babyteeth" is a coming of age movie that's set apart from others like it because of the protagonist's existential crisis. Scanlan's character is as immature in some ways as any sixteen year old, but at the same time is being asked to summon up reserves of maturity to deal with the ultimate curve ball life has to throw at us. How do you balance the emotional and hormonal ups and downs of teen romance with the possibility of your impending death?

The film is a bit monotonous in tone and starts to feel like a grind after a while. But again, it's worth seeing for the performances and for the unsentimental treatment of the subject matter that would have possibly segued into the maudlin in different hands. The ending scene is the most devastating thing I've seen in a movie this year.

Grade: B+

You could watch it thinking just another teenage drama all doomed with tragedy but wait till the end. It's not till the end the true goal is achieved and true characters are revealed. Truth is, this is story with obvious outcome but what makes it different is the characters and how they reach to reality of situation. The scene cut abruptly and goes back and forth from sad to jumpy to anger to romance and back to being sad. Even the mysterious reveal is so subtle that many of us won't notice. But it's all with good intentions that movie is wrapped up by the waves crashing beach which metaphorically symbolises that you live multiple lives of your parents and your friends and you lose all those lives when you die.

It takes guts to take a subject like this and not play it safe, to give every character flaws, every relationship twists and turns and many quirks to the story line. I knew that there would be tears from the off but didn't anticipate feeling as emotionally invested in every character. Superb directing too - cinematic in places and claustrophobic in others. A beautifully crafted film. Not soppy, just really believable characters.