Babyteeth

For 16-year-old Milla (Eliza Scanlen, superb), the 23-year-old Moses (Toby Wallace, equally superb) is adventurous and dangerous; for her parents, psychiatrist Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) and former musician Anna (Essie Davis) he’s a self-destructive, homeless junky with a serious attitude problem. Given that Milla has terminal cancer—and that her first love will also probably be her last—how does one proceed? This is the core problem in Shannon Murphy’s original take on adolescent love and all its inherent drama. That her film is brazenly funny and emotionally honest makes it one of the most intelligent and interesting debuts in a long time.

‘A wickedly perverse and, in time, intensely moving variation on familiar coming-of-age themes… Babyteeth serves as a fully-fledged coming-out ball for 20-year-old star Eliza Scanlen… She nails a tricky assignment in her big-screen debut, playing both an ethereal otherness and a yearning, immediate, only-too-recognizable adolescent want in the cancer-stricken Milla—as befits a character who has both accepted that she’s not long for this world, and resolved to make herself a little more worldly within it before her time’s up.’—Guy Lodge, Variety