Эстер Блюбургер: Поиск себя

2008 film

Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger is a 2008 Australian independent teen film written and directed by Cathy Randall. It stars Danielle Catanzariti, Keisha Castle Hughes and Toni Collette. The film follows Jewish 13 year old Esther (Catanzariti), an outcast at her posh school, where she has no friends. That changes when she meets nonconformist Sunni (Castle Hughes) from the local public school. With Esther's character based loosely on her own adolescence, Randall was inspired to write the film's script by what she saw as a lack of role models for teenage girls. In 2002, the script earned her a fellowship to the Los Angeles Film School's Feature Development Programme, where she developed the project, and it was later picked up by Tama Films. Randall returned to Australia for casting, and Catanzariti was eventually chosen in the lead role after she attended an audition for minor roles and extras. Production spanned from October to December 2006, with filming taking place in Adelaide, South Australia and Sydney, New South Wales. The film premiered on 9 February 2008 at the Berlin International Film Festival and was released in Australia on 20 March 2008. It failed to earn back its budget with a total domestic gross of approximately $800,000. The film attracted mixed reviews; some critics praised the originality and the acting, though others found Randall's direction dull and the script poorly written. Catanzariti won the Australian Film Institute's Young Actor Award for her performance, and the film received a further three AFI nominations and a nomination for a Film Critics Circle of Australia Award.

Esther Blueburger is a 13 year old Jewish outcast at her posh private school. Things are no better at home, where her twin brother is beginning to develop into a sociopath and her controlling mother pressures Esther to conform. She finds her only friend in a duck called Normal, and she frequently prays into a toilet asking God to "get me out of here". After escaping her own Bat Mitzvah, Esther bumps into Sunni, a rebellious girl from the local public school, who she had observed and spoken to on previous occasions. The two girls form a friendship, and Esther begins attending Sunni's school, unbeknownst to her parents, under the guise of a Swedish exchange student. She revels in the easygoing nature of the public school and enjoys spending time with Sunni's friends and Sunni's laid back single mother, Mary, who works as a stripper. As Esther gains popularity and submits to numerous acts of peer pressure – including attacking a girl from her old school – her friendship with Sunni starts to deteriorate. At her old school, meanwhile, her classmates have been led to believe that she was chosen for an elite social experiment, and when she returns she is treated like royalty. Esther later discovers that Mary has died in a motorcycle accident, and a grieving Sunni is transferred to Esther's private school under her grandmother's care. Ultimately deciding that being true to herself is more important than fitting in, Esther discards her pretenses and renews her friendship with Sunni.

Filming took place from 30 October to 15 December 2006. Hamburg Filmfest, Washington Jewish Film Festival, London Australian Film Festival, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Boston Jewish Film Festival and the Stockholm International Film Festival. The film earned from 134 locations on its opening week at the box office. Its total gross surpassed $600,000 by the next week, having taken a per screen average of $1,123 over its second weekend. By the end of 2008, the film had earned a total gross of $800,000 at the Australian box office, making it the fifth highest grossing Australian film of the year, but it still failed to earn back its initial budget of $6 million.

Film industry magazine Screen International critic Peter Brunette noted that in spite of minor faults, the film was "an otherwise enjoyable piece of highly competent, commercial filmmaking," which "should perform well in all markets, from theatrical through to ancillary." In a review for The Age, Jake Wilson gave the film 3 stars out of 5, describing it as "a quirky Australian coming of age story that gives the genre a good name". He wrote that while it lacked the film "craft or pizazz" of other teen movies, the film broke the conventions of the genre. The Sydney Morning Heralds Sandra Hall awarded Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger 3 out of 5 stars and thought that it was entertaining but "too polished". She praised the acting, particularly from Danielle Catanzariti and Russell Dykstra, but felt that the script lacked spontaneity. Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton of At the Movies each gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5. Stratton enjoyed the "terrific" performances, namely from Catanzariti and Keisha Castle Hughes, while Pomeranz praised the film's "eccentricity" and the discomfort caused to the audience at times. Other critics were less positive. The Herald Suns head reviewer Leigh Paatsch gave the film no stars, claiming the film tried to match the edginess of the 2007 comedy film Juno but was, "way, way off the mark". He wrote, "If you think the title screams 'Go watch something else', just wait until you get a load of this lame local production." Jim Schembri of The Age opined that the film was an example of "just how bad local [Australian] films can get". In particular, he criticised the "stiff" performances, the "woeful" directing and the plot's implausibility. Variety magazine's Richard Kuipers wrote that the film was "sporadically amusing" and lacked "scripting smarts and pulling power across demographics". He praised the soundtrack and Castle Hughes' portrayal of Sunni, but felt that the film was brought down by dull cinematography and "uninspired dialogue and direction". Luke Goodsell, writing for Empire magazine, awarded the film 2 out of 5 stars and deemed it to be deserving of "an all purpose warning label to stay the Hell away".

Danielle Catanzariti won the Australian Film Institute's Young Actor Award for her performance as Esther. The film received three other AFI Award nominations for Best Screenplay – Original (Cathy Randall), Best Costume Design (Shareen Beringer) and Best Sound (Liam Egan, Tony Murtagh, Phil Judd and Des Keneally). Catanzariti was nominated by the Film Critics Circle of Australia for the FCCA Best Actress Award. Randall won an award for directing at the Hamburg Filmfest Michel Children's and Youth Film Festival.