It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Australian screenwriter, producer and director John Duigan's eight feature film which he wrote, is loosely based on his own experiences and is the first part of a planned trilogy which was succeeded by "Flirting" (1991). It premiered in Australia, was shot on location in Braidwood and on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales in Australia and is an Australian production which was produced by producers Doug Mitchell, George Miller and Terry Hayes. It tells the story about an adolescent student named Danny Embling who lives in a small town at a hotel which is managed by his father and mother. Danny spends most of his time with his friend named Freya who lives with her adoptive parents and her stepsister named Gail and is seriously infatuated with her, but when Freya is introduced to the local rebel named Trevor Leishman he has to find new ways to gain her affection.Subtly and acutely directed by Australian filmmaker John Duigan, this finely tuned fictional tale which is narrated by one of the main characters and from multiple viewpoints, draws a memorable portrayal of a pivotal year in the lives of three Australian misfits who are connected by their alienation. While notable for it's naturalistic and distinct milieu depictions, sterling cinematography by Australian cinematographer Geoff Burton and production design and costume design by production designer and costume designer Roger Ford, this narrative-driven, conversational and dramatic story which examines themes like identity, friendship and the rites of passage and where a girl is drawn towards the Australian landscape and an amorous boy begins studying hypnotism, depicts three dense and interrelated studies of character and contains a great and timely score by composer Christine Woodruff.This literary, romantic and atmospheric coming-of-age film from the late 1980s which is set during a summer in the early 1960s in a country town in the Tablelands of New South Wales in Australian and where a triangle drama arises between a musician, an orphan and a wild football player, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, subtle continuity, endearing characters, spiritual undertones and the wonderful acting performances by Australian actors Noah Tylor, Ben Mendelsohn and Australian actresses Loene Carmen and Lynnette Curran. A rejuvenating, admirable and majestic drama from the later period of the Australian New Wave which gained, among other awards, the AFI Award for Best Film, Best Direction John Duigan and Best Supporting Actor Ben Mendelsohn at the 29th Australian Film Institute Awards in 1987.

A reluctant nerd approaching the awkward end of adolescence finds his intellectual pursuits in fierce conflict with his awakening lust for a childhood friend from the wrong side of the tracks, who meanwhile is infatuated with a kindred rebel spirit more her own age.The subsequent rite of passage doesn't stray too far from the patented coming-of-age blueprint (laughter leading to tragedy leading to bittersweet wisdom), but writer-director John Duigan's affectionate screenplay avoids falling into any sentimental traps, and the isolated Australian outback setting recalls some of the melancholy nostalgia of 'The Last Picture Show'. If not much else the film is a welcome throwback to a time when Australian movie-making meant well-crafted, unpretentious entertainment, before the Down Under film industry devolved to the level of 'Crocodile Dundee'.

The talented John Duigan (perhaps best known for directing WIDE SARGASSO SEA (1993), based on the novel by Jean Rhys) wrote and directed this wonderful film about kids growing up in New South Wales, Australia, in 1962. Four years later, with the same boy in the lead, Duigan directed its sequel, FLIRTING (1991). The film is so honest, straightforward, and heart-rending, that it is a model of what an unpretentious film about real people should be. The film was made in the small town of Braidwood, which apart from its cinema looks like something from 1862 rather than 1962, so things clearly didn't change much in those days in the area they call the 'Tableland'. The film would not have worked if the two leads had not been so perfect. Seventeen year-old Loene Carmen is so fresh and real as the girl Freya Olson, but also so convincingly sad and tragic in the light of the events which ensue. The kids in this film just don't seem to be acting. We can almost believe that John Duigan sneaked into the little town with an invisible camera and recorded all of this really happening. The boy Danny is played by Noah Taylor. The honesty and integrity of his performance were the key to its success. He languishes with hopeless love as an onlooker to the tragic first romance of his childhood friend, Freya, who being older than him is 'out of his league' romantically. The pain of first love, especially unrequited first love, is intensely conveyed. There is also the implicit undercurrent that Freya may be his own half-sister, with neither of them realizing it, as there is a subplot about the dead mother of Freya, Sarah Amery, who died having her at the age of only 17, and the father may well have been Danny's own. But this is all the invisible 'grownup background' to the story of the kids, who are in the foreground of this tale. Ben Mendelsohn plays an older boy with a maniacal laugh who steals Freya's heart but who turns out to be mentally unbalanced, presumably with incipient schizophrenic. Things turn out badly. There are wonderful shots of the wild Australia, and the kids run around in the fields and on the hills with the abandon of a youth before everything became spoiled by cell phones, emails, and Facebook. Everyone in those days was outdoors all the time, not hunched over a computer. People actually looked at one another as they passed in the street, and were not peering into their Blackberrys or staring into space with a piece of metal stuck in their ear like a transplant. This film is an ode to real life, in a world which has forgotten what real life is. It is one of the masterpieces of the high tide of Australian cinema back in those days before the tide broke.

The Year My Voice Broke is basically about three young kids growing up in a small, desolate town in Australia during the 1960s. The main character and narrator is Danny. His childhood friend is Frey, who also happens to be his first real love, although she doesn't know exactly how much he loves her--at least not at first. So to speak, Frey is like the only girl who he trusts and who he understands. But, Frey loves the reckless outlaw, Trevor. The movie reminds me a lot of the 1986 movie, Lucas, which starred a very young Corey Haim. Danny is like Lucas in that he is in love with his childhood friend, the only girl who seems to understand and appreciate him. Freya compares to Maggie because she finds herself falling in love with another. And Trevor is like Cappie. But 'The Year My Voice Broke' deals with much more adult situations than simply being a matter of 'puppy love,' and thus some of the results are tragic. Nonetheless, it is a movie worth seeing.