Abbie Cornish

I was very impressed with actress Abbie Cornish recently in Bright Star. I haven't seen much of her before: supporting roles in Stop-Loss and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, both of which were impressive. She is also, ahem, very easy on the eyes, evidenced by a recent pictorial in Esquire as a "Woman We Love," from whence the picture at right was taken. So I decided to do further study and take a look at some of her early roles from her native Australia.

First up is Somersault, written and directed by Cate Shortland and released in 2004. It is one of those earnest indie films about rootless people searching for connection that appears to be endemic to all nations. Last year I wrote about the tendency for these sorts of films to be shot in cold climates, and even in Australia that happens, as this one was shot in Jindabyne, a ski resort town (I'll admit I didn't know it cold enough to high enough for people to ski in Australia).

Cornish stars as Heidi, a sexually precocious sixteen-year-old who gets kicked out of her house after she makes out with her mother's boyfriend. For some reason she heads to Jindabyne (the DVD is sorely missing subtitles, and with the heavy accents I missed a lot of the plot), searching for a job or a guy to take care of her. She eventually hooks with Joe (Sam Wainwright, star of the upcoming Avatar), who is pretty nice to her but freaks out when she asks him if he loves her (when he balks at answering they are in a Chinese restaurant, and she responds by chugging a dish of chilis). She also befriends the kindly owner of a motel, who offers her a place to stay, but tests that friendship by ending up in the parking lot drunk and naked.

Part of the problem with this film is, despite a nice performance by Cornish, Heidi is a bit sketchy as a character. Is she a nymphomaniac, or in some other way mentally disabled? Another character in the film, the brother of a co-worker, is identified as having Asperger's Syndrome, and I wonder if that was a clue that Heidi was afflicted with some sort of malady. She does things that are so stupid it's hard to root or care for her.

This film also suffers from a complete lack of a sense of humor. The color palette is saturated with drab grays and browns, and so is the script, as it is unrelentingly grim. No one seems to enjoy any part of their lives. It could have used a few moments of levity here and there. Even people down on their luck have a laugh every now and then.

The next year Cornish co-starred with Heath Ledger in Candy, directed by Neil Armfield, as two charismatic junkies. Unlike Somersault, this film, though about a grim subject, is colorful and has some humor, most especially in the droll performance of Geoffrey Rush as a friendly drug manufacturer. The tone is set from the opening scene, as Ledger and Cornish enter a carnival ride (identical to the one in The 400 Blows, life seems to be a series of coincidences) that spins them around while Rush watches bemusedly from above.

The film is a showcase for the thespian abilities of the two attractive young leaders, and in some ways that works against the film as a whole. There's something off-putting about taking pleasure in watching two young beautiful people make love and then shoot up. When they are their worst, particularly a harrowing scene where they try to kick, they are made up to look sick, but one never forgets they are glamorous movie stars.

Still, this is a good film. I liked the tension between Cornish and her middle-class family, particularly the difficult relationship she has with her mother (who screams at her for screwing up making whipped cream). Armfield has a terrific eye for striking visuals, and the screenplay, by Armfield and the author of the source novel, Luke Davies, has an equal balance of drug horror and tender love story. Unfortunately the untimely death of Ledger is impossible to forget, and seeing his raw talent can't help but make one think of what might have been for years to come.