Alicia I love this movie so much

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Sam Sloan Without the hype and big financial backing movies such at this one often go unnoticed. I didn't know what to expect when I began watching this movie, but it wasn't long before I was drawn into it and the movie did something I look for movies to do for me - it made me feel. We see a young girl named Heidi who begins by doing a foolish thing, kissing her mother's boyfriend and it goes a little too far just when her mother walks in on them. We don't know what happens to her mother's boyfriend, but Heidi is pretty much forced to leave her mother's home with barely the clothes on her back. What follows is fairly predictable. It doesn't take a genius to know that the world is a hostile place for someone who is without a place to live, money, friends, family and with her only assets being her youth and good looks. As I watched, my heart went out to her and I wondered would even I have taken advantage of her and her situation being so vulnerable and desirable, or would I have taken her under my wing and tried to help her as the child she really was and needed, though some might argue didn't deserve because of her naiveté and penchant for getting into jams. I imagine many men, especially would be wondering the same thing. I really liked this movie and the acting was first rate and that surprised me given all the actors were total unknowns. If you want to see another movie as good as this one and similar to this, try the French movie called Vagabond.

Ken Knox There is a moment in Cate Shortland's "Somersault" where Joe (Sam Worthington), a surly and emotionally closed-off young man confused over the feelings he has for his kind-of girlfriend Heidi (Abbie Cornish), shows up at the home of an openly gay acquaintance of his mother's and—after downing several shots and spilling his guts to the older man—follows him into the hallway and makes an awkward pass at him by planting a drunken kiss on him. It's a surprising twist in both Joe's development as a character and the movie itself, but it's just one of several similarly unexpected--and unexplained--moments that define Shortland's oddly compelling drama about sexual coming-of-age. Joe is not the main character, nor does the film ever revisit his attempt at same-sex experimentation, and it's that vague attention to detail that is the most frustrating aspect of the movie. The story actually belongs to Heidi, an evidently emotionally troubled teenager with no concept of propriety who, for no apparent reason, decides to make a pass at her mother's hunky boyfriend. When mom comes home and catches the two kissing, she freaks, and Heidi runs away to a neighboring town. There, she shacks up in the small flat of an empathetic motel owner, gets a job at the local BP service station, and has sex with a string of guys. It is Joe, however, that most captivates her, and their awkward and strained attempts at forging a relationship are some of the most authentic captured on celluloid. Both of them are plagued by troubles that are never explored (apparently, Heidi once tried to commit suicide, as is evidenced by the scars on her wrists), but as they begin to open up to each other, the movie becomes more fascinating and oddly romantic. Shortland's direction is as languid as her ambling script (a bit more back story on the characters would have made them more three- dimensional), but her style is effective nonetheless, providing a showcase for the talents of both Worthington and Cornish, two young Aussie up-and-comers who appear to have big futures ahead of them. Grade: B.--Originally published in IN Los Angeles Magazine.

Matt Wow, I feel drained after watching this movie... and somewhat longing for some kind of resolve. The characters seemed incapable of much emotion (dialogue throughout consisted of 3 word sentences) and relationships between characters seemed rather "put on" and shallow. Conversations were awkward, the intentions of each character were ambiguous and sometimes, I would go so far to say, completely self-contradictory. The lead characters' (Heidi and Joe) relationship had the depth of a typical Big Brother (Tv Show) boyfriend/girlfriend fling. Abbie Cornish is certainly watchable, in an awkward, cute-teenager sort of way (even though she was in her 20's at the time) but, even then, her character seemed so lost inside her mind and "floaty" that if she wasn't so ready to remove her clothing at the drop of a hat I probably would have changed channels (what... I'm a guy, I can't help it). Why this movie received the praise that it did, I'll never know. It felt like I was reliving someone's horrible, melancholic adolescence - I myself had a bad enough teenage life as it is, so I don't know why anyone would need more of that. Overall, quite a miserable flick.

Becca B I started watching the film, just by chance.... And after only a few minutes, I kept saying "Wow..... This must have been written by a woman!! This could ONLY have been written by a woman!!" LOL :-))))I watched the whole film and only in the end I confirmed what I already knew: "Written & Directed by Cate Shortland" :-)))I had never heard of this writer/director before, but I enjoyed the film... :-) And it is very refreshing knowing there are a few women out there doing films from a rather... female perspective. And at the same time (in my opinion) beautifully realistic. I found the film beautiful! And I would like to say to Cate Shortland:Congratulations. Keep up with the good work :-)Becca (Portugal)