Flirting (film)

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Flirting is a 1991 Australian coming of age film about a romance between two teenagers, written and directed by John Duigan. It stars Noah Taylor, who appears again as Danny Embling, a character from Duigan's 1987 film The Year My Voice Broke. It also stars Thandie Newton and Nicole Kidman. It is the second in a planned trilogy of films by Duigan. It was also produced by Kennedy-Miller who made the Mad Max trilogy.

Primarily because of its complex characters, low-key atmosphere, and sumptuous cinematography, the movie was widely acclaimed critically. It was featured on Roger Ebert's Top 10 Best Films List of 1992. It is considered by many to be one of the last films of the Australian New Wave film movement that flourished in the 1980's.

Danny Embling, an awkward, underdeveloped teen suffering from occasional bouts of stuttering, attends an all-male boarding school in New South Wales, Australia. The year is 1965 and it has been some time since Danny has had any romantic relationship with a girl (his former love, Freya, from The Year My Voice Broke, left him at a crucial point in his sexual/romantic development). He slowly becomes interested in Thandiwe Adjewa, a Ugandan-Kenyan-British girl (Father Ugandan, Mother Kenyan-British) attending the all-girls school across the lake. Throughout the course of the school year, they foster a budding romance, despite the overbearing regulations inflicted upon them - specifically racial politics (as the couple is interracial) and social conventions (Thandiwe is often regarded by the religiously-influenced authority figures as rebellious and overtly sexual).

Although the story evokes universal themes of romance and love, it also examines the properties of the "Australian character": existential isolation (brought on by both geographical and environmental conditions) and strong cultural ties to Great Britain.

Controversy surrounded production of the movie, as director John Duigan supposedly had an affair with actress Thandie Newton, who was 19 at the time.

The film features one of the last appearances by Nicole Kidman in an Australian-produced film before she made her transition to Hollywood; Kidman had previously met and worked with director Duigan on the Australian miniseries "Vietnam," which helped garner Kidman national attention and played an important role in her eventually becoming recognized by international critics. In this way, Kidman seems to have used Flirting as both a farewell to Australian cinema and a thanks to Duigan.

The film won the 1990 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film. This movie ranked number 46 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.