Joy is fifteen, good looking, living in a Sydney suburb and ready to hit the excitement of the local shopping mall. There is a theft, a chase, a clinch with a boy, a fight and a homecoming. The hard-edged, choppy cutting allows little dialogue, but words are important: Joy's thoughts during the casual clinch (or is it coitus?) first bring forward the longing and loneliness beneath her self-assurance. Words are there from the start, also, in bold overlain strips of commentary, of parental admonitions and in one instance, ambiguously, possibly, Joy's own words. This highly effective device, as ironic as any Greek chorus, leads naturally to the screaming argument about her that erupts between her parents when Joy returns home. She is, in the end, a lonely girl sitting on her bed, hearing her parents' arguing, looking rather lost. At first this film seems at a distance from the issues it is raising, seems to adopt a position of moral neutrality towards her behaviour, but then the Joy's alienation and the reasons for it start to appear. The theme is serious, but this film is a lot of fun, in its action and visually. Deborah Clay is splendid as Joy, with all the attitude the part requires and with an energy, especially in the chase, that put me in mind of another athletic female lead, Franka Potente in Lola rennt (1998). Watch it if you can.
