Flirting

Part two of Australian writer-director John Duigan’s trilogy about teenage life in the 60s (which commenced with 1987’s The Year My Voice Broke) follows Danny Embling (Noah Taylor) to a ritzy boarding school, where he becomes involved with Thandiwe Adjewa (Thandie Newton), a beautiful and precocious black girl from Uganda, at a nearby girls’ school. Not only worthy of its fine predecessor, this tender, perceptive, and gorgeously acted memory piece (1992) may even surpass it in subtlety, feeling, and depth of characterization. (Nicole Kidman is also very fine as one of the black girl’s classmates.) A winner of many prizes in Australia, this lovely feature deserves them all. (JR)

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