School daze

Ah, school days - what could evoke more memories (good and bad) than those heady times when you felt the world was at your feet. Actually, most of the times, the only thing at your feet was your best friend - but I digress.

Blurred is, to my knowledge, the first film to take on that uniquely Australian rite of passage, Schoolies' Week. For those unfamiliar with this somewhat bizarre ritual, thousands of school-leavers from all along the eastern seaboard (and some from even further afield) converge on Surfers' Paradise in the early summer for what used to be a week (now more like a month) of partying and, well… partying!

The film follows the fortunes of several groups of young people heading to the Coast for the reverie. For much of the film though, it feels like we're waiting for Godot, as none of them seem to be getting very far, thanks to a series of misadventures. These range from lovers' spats to encounters with maniacal yokels. Along the way there's cross-dressing, sexual activity (or in one case, inactivity) of all sorts, and binge drinking. And I suspect road safety authorities won't be all that thrilled with what two drunken party animals do with a limousine.

Blurred flashes between its characters at lightning speed, giving it a raw energy, but at the same time, exposing its major flaw - a distinct lack of character development. We get to meet plenty of characters, but the screen time devoted to each of them individually is so short, we don't learn much about them. Of course, this inevitably means we can't much care about what happens to them. The lack of development left me feeling these were such self-centred young people, I couldn't give a fig whether they made it to Surfers' or not.

Screenwriters Stephen Davis and Kier Shorey introduce plenty of humour into the script, and it works intermittently. For every joke that falls flat, there's one that comes off; but the film isn't consistently funny. A romantic subplot never quite takes off, and Matt Newton suffers tremendous indignity as a chauffer with an attitude problem. The ending to the film however is a major letdown; a damp squib that smacks of a distinct lack of inspiration.

The young cast makes a fair fist of the patchy material, but the script's flaws hamper their opportunities. Probably the biggest name in the cast, Matt Newton, is largely wasted in his role; but Veronica Sywak and Kristian Schmid as two new lovers are at least credible. Blurred is just about stolen though by Mark Priestley and Travis Cotton as two country bumpkins down from the bush for a good time. Their early encounter with a billboard is a highlight.

Although there are things to like about Blurred, it's mostly an inconsistent affair. Most of the film certainly is a blur, as it flits around trying to pick up its characters, rather than giving them a definite plot to follow. This is a brave little effort, but it largely misses the mark.

David Edwards