I'm dangerous tonight

REVIEWED - SOMERSAULT: Cate Shortland's beautifully composed meditation on the joys and dangers of acting on impulse won every one of the 13 Australian Film Institute Awards for which it was nominated. Quite right too, writes Donald Clarke

Robert Humphreys's photography, which calls to mind Tim Orr's work on the films of David Gordon Green, makes an art of picking out bold colours - the red of a pair of gloves, the greens and oranges of sweet wrappers - amid the drained, icy grey of the rundown ski-resort in which the young heroine washes up.

Though it does have its soapy moments, the script successfully avoids art-house angst (see Fatih Akin's recent Head-On) as it walks us through a girl's futile attempts to avoid dealing with the consequences of her actions. Best of all, Shortland's debut features a strikingly contained and disciplined performance from newcomer Abbie Cornish in the lead role. I hope she has a good agent to sort through the bales of rubbish that Hollywood will shortly be sending her.

Heidi, an emotionally unstable teenager from Canberra, gets caught trying to seduce her mother's tattooed boyfriend and, after a savage screaming match, leaves home to stay with an acquaintance in a snowy part of the country. Sadly, her contact wants nothing to do with her and, as desperate for accommodation as affection, she practically forces her attentions on a troubled young farmer (Sam Worthington).

When he steps back after their first night together, Heidi ends up accepting the hospitality of a local motel owner (Lynette Curran), whose son has recently been imprisoned. Drifting around the dreary town, seeking help, but rarely offering anything in return, Heidi slowly begins to realise that, however far she runs, her problems will stubbornly follow her.

If Cornish did nothing else but remind us of the forgotten erotic energies of Alvin Stardust's music - Heidi's twisty dance to My Coo Ca Choo went some way towards warming a positively arctic IFI 1 - then her performance would be worthy of note. But she also manages the tricky task of infusing a solipsistic, irresponsible character with such vulnerable humanity that it becomes impossible not to wish the best for her. Shortland and her star sizzle with potential.