Babyteeth review: Poignant, unexpected Australian drama

There are certain expectations when it comes to this type of drama. But Babyteeth upends them all.

When you hear a movie is a family drama about a dying teen girl, it sets up certain expectations.

Babyteeth blows those expectations wide open.

The Australian movie starring Eliza Scanlen (Little Women), Essie Davis and Ben Mendelsohn has a different beat, and a different soul. It doesn’t rely on well-trodden tropes, instead it embraces the quirks that make it unique.

There’s nothing maudlin or sentimental about it, even if the story is moving towards an ending that you know will break your heart.

Directed by first-time feature helmer Shannon Murphy and adapted by Rita Kalnejais from her own stage play of the same name, Babyteeth is a poignant story about not death but life.

Babyteeth is a poignant Australian movie

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Year 10 student Milla Finlay (Scanlen) meets 23-year-old Moses (Toby Wallace) at the train station after school. Milla is immediately drawn to Moses’ erratic behaviour.

You could easily make the argument that the primly dressed private school girl with the ribbon in her hair and a boater hat is often attracted to the unkempt “bad boy” with the rat’s tail in these stories, but Babyteeth will soon reveal there’s much more at play.

At first it seems bizarre – what does Milla see in this guy – but Wallace plays Moses with so much charisma, it’s easy to be won over. And it’s a physical performance, gangly limbs that stretch into any space, highlighting Wallace’s commanding screen presence.

Moses has no inhibitions, immediately taking off his shirt and throwing it on her face when her nose starts bleeding. It happens a lot, she tells him. It happens because Milla is sick, stricken by a form of cancer.

Milla takes Moses home to dinner, introducing him to her parents Henry (Mendelsohn) and Anna (Davis). Henry is a psychiatrist, not above self-medicating or writing scripts for his insomniac and anxious wife.

Henry and Anna are, correctly, worried about Moses being in Milla’s life – there’s the age difference but also he’s a low-level drug dealer, pilfering pills from the Finlays’ home on every visit.

Young love

But it’s also clear that Milla is obsessed with Moses, gravitating towards him like he’s the sun, even though it makes no logical sense. It also makes no logical sense for Henry and Anna to invite Moses into their home, but it’s all in the service of what is mostly unsaid – Milla is dying and Moses sustains her, how do you deny her that?

During an early dinner conversation, Moses makes an argument about functionality versus beauty, but Babyteeth manages to balance both.

Not every character or story choice is “functional” to the movie’s plot or momentum, but those beats are beautiful, it fills out the world, whether that’s the pregnant neighbour across the road (Emily Barclay), or Milla’s violin teacher and old friend of Anna’s, Gidon (Eugene Gilfedder).

Babyteeth steals moments, a luxury, much like Milla is stealing every moment she can, while she can. The movie’s soul is built around these moments, of sitting in the sun, of making crepes, of dancing.

Two scenes of Milla dancing, one at a party in which shards of light hit her face at different points. Milla’s verve, movements and how she relates to this multi-coloured space really highlight the character’s joie de vivre.

Babyteeth is effective at not letting Milla be defined by her illness.

Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis as Milla’s parents in Babyteeth

Murphy and cinematographer Andrew Commis use close-ups to establish an intimacy with Milla and her emotional state, especially the scenes when she can let go and be in the moment while the family’s house with its hothouse atrium garden is always bathed in this exquisite diffused light, as if everything we’re seeing has an otherworldly quality to it.

Or maybe this touch of transcendency is a reminder of how fleeting life is.

The performances from the core cast are powerful and nuanced – sometimes they’re big displays of emotion and sometimes it’s the twitch on Mendelsohn’s face, in what he’s trying to not show.

Davis and Mendelsohn create complex portraits as two parents bound together by grief, but also beset by their own problems with themselves and with each other. Whenever either are on screen, it’s electrifying.

Just watching the veteran Australian stars, plus rising stars Scanlen and Wallace, do their magic would be reason enough to be seduced by Babyteeth.

But it gives you many reasons.

Rating: 4/5

Babyteeth is in cinemas from Thursday, July 23

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