Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Shantae Barnes-Cowan, Tasma Walton, Carlos Sanson Jr., Mark Coles Smith
Intro:
...an enjoyably tough but tender cinematic experience.
The coming-of-age flick is always ripe with possibility, a potential cinematic canvas for humour, honest emotion, serious angst, and vivid characterisation. The lineage is a strong one, and particularly so in Australia, with stone-cold classics like Puberty Blues, The Year My Voice Broke and The Getting Of Wisdom leading a well-populated pack of lesser known charmers like Fast Talking, The FJ Holden, September, and many more. Another winner to add to the mix is the raucous but big-hearted Sweet As, an indigenous-themed comedy-drama which heralds an exciting new Australian cinematic voice in co-writer/director Jub Clerc, who co-pens with veteran actor (and co-creator of the excellent drama The Land) Steve Rodgers.
Bustling with youthful energy, but offset by a sense of true visual poetry, Sweet As is the warm, winning tale of troubled sixteen-year-old Aboriginal girl, Murra (Shantae Barnes-Cowan), whose life is turned around when she is forced to knuckle down on a “photo-safari for at-risk kids.” While on the road trip of her life, Murra surprisingly meets a whole new crew of unlikely friends, who open her up to different ways of approaching life. Under the not-always-so-watchful-eye of tour guides Mitch (Tasma Walton) and Fernando (Carlos Sanson Jr.), this group of troubled kids find surprising strength and support in each other, and Murra discovers gifts she never knew she had.
Centred by Shantae Barnes-Cowan’s loose-limbed, effortlessly natural, and utterly charming performance, Sweet As is warm and unapologetically feel-good in tone, but it doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of what it means to be an indigenous teenage girl in Australia today. The film’s sympathies lie completely with its adolescent characters, and the resilience they have to muster just to get through the day. This adds a welcome steeliness to Sweet As that perfectly offsets its winning bubbliness, making for an enjoyably tough but tender cinematic experience.
