Newcastle (the movie)

[cagmag]

Notes on another queer-themed Australian movie, this one moderately upbeat.


Engaging coming of age number with a lot of the tropes of the genre - group of friends demonstrate the history of their friendship and then go through a trial - but the aesthetic is all surf movie, which actually makes a nice change. Not as much surf sequence porn as your average surf movie, and a lot more dialogue. The main character is straight and his story is all about teenage aggression, lack of direction, fear, and grief, but his gay twin brother gets almost as much screen time, most of it revolving around a fairly charming romance which, despite the marketing of the film and the protestations of the director, definitely reads on-screen as a reciprocal deal.

70/30 queer/straight ratio in terms of the emotion and drama, but on screen action is pretty much 90% straight. Happy ending? Highlight for details:

To a certain extent viewers have to decide for themselves if the gay love story has a happy ending in the conventional sense, but it's not very difficult to say yes. For the straight couples portrayed it's 50/50 together in the end/not.

Jumped online to check a few details of the film, but all references to it now revolve around actor Xavier Samuel's casting in the Twilight series. So if your waters are tainted by Twifandom, you will hear more about him. Despite that, he's actually quite good in Newcastle as a reasonably confident modern day queer teen who is nevertheless still recognisably full of adolescent awkwardness rather than being a total fantasy of teen-romance. A couple of members of the cast have appeared on Aussie teen soaps, but Samuel is definitely the breakout star - but then, he had the best record going in with his previous appearance in critically well-received September. And considering the rest of the actors were cast based on their ability to surf, it's not surprising it's Samuel we're seeing more of now.