A fourteen-year-old girl from a nice family falls in love with a twenty-year-old slacker who deals drugs—her parents’ worst nightmare. The moving, funny, and authentic coming-of-age picture by Shannon Murphy was screened in the Main Competition at the 76th Venice Film Festival.
One morning, on her way to school, Milla meets Moses. Moses is six or seven years her senior, and just looks like the wrong kind of guy—not someone you would introduce to your parents. But Milla’s heart is set on him: Moses is her first love, and he could well be her last, as she is slowly dying from cancer.
Shannon Murphy’s debut picture is everything but your standard drama about a terminal illness with endless hospital scenes and preoccupied faces of the family. Her characters are subtler and more complex that one might expect, and Milla, ethereal and pure as she may be, has a very sober understanding of the world. This is a clever, amusing and sometimes sad story about the happiness we feel when we are in love, the fragility of life and the importance of here and now. The film is based on the stage play of the same name by Rita Kalnejais, who also wrote the screenplay.
The film will be screened in English with Russian subtitles.
Babyteeth
Director: Shannon Murphy
Australia, 2019. 118 min, 18+