Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

WY is a violent, disturbing, low-budget Australian film whose plot and conflict are a bit similar to "Betrayed at 17" but go to lengths far beyond those of the Lifetime B-17. While it focuses mainly on the very darkest aspects of adolescence, it's pretty and sadly moving in a few spots, and the acting/characterization are undeniably real. WY also has a touch of the artsy and the surreal; it does a nice job of meshing certain characters' fantasies with their realities. Another interesting aspect of this film is how, although a few sparse adult voices are heard, the only visible characters are the teenagers, something I haven't seen anywhere outside of "Charlie Brown." The pace of WY often plods (particularly in the middle), and the scope is limited almost exclusively to the teenagers' school and homes. Those qualities, along with the fact that WY's just generally a real downer, will obviously not appeal to some tastes. Others will find, as I did, that its better, more unique qualities make it a memorable and worthwhile experience.

What I liked about this movie was that it made a very strong point on how dramatically can a life go south when you are young, fragile and think you're invincible and free to experiment all you want without serious consequences. In that light, it's a real eye opener, as I believe it's getting more and more hard for people to be young and safe at the same time.I'm afraid the movie itself wasn't too much of a good job. Most of the scenes were over-dramatized, the dialogs did not offer much and there ass little room for exploring the true minds and souls of the characters.What got my attention was the style of scenes - very contemporary cold-feeling interiors, design and colors mixed with the techno club music. All this was accompanied by visual effects like fast forwarding or slow motion. As a matter of fact, it was a dynamic cut. Maybe little too dynamic - there were certain scenes that were only visualized imaginations of characters and then the movie rolled back - which might have taken a while for the viewer to actually understand. These daydream-like flashes were triggering almost randomly and most of the time viewer could have very hard time understanding what has or hasn't happened.Mood and content wise, the movie crushed everything possibly beautiful in a blood bath of modern darkness and shallowness, but I think it was meant to leave a reaction of bitterness in you, since the scenes and plot was quite drastic. In a strange way, it might be the intended message of the movie for the viewer to pick up.

Here is an absolutely useless, waste of a time type of movie that starts off trying to be too cool for school and ends up being so disengagingly meaningless that just getting from one minute to the next, in this movie, was a struggle. This is a lesson in how not to make a film if ever there was one. It's as if they took the theme of "wasted" and did their best to make every element of its production wasteful. What a mess. absolutely everything about this movie is simply banal, meaningless drivel, with the occasional pretty girl thrown in for good measure.Frankly it's so lacking in anything equating to engaging development of plot & structure that just writing a review about it is tiresome in itself. Watch this movie if only to know what it means to waste money on a production which should never have seen the light of day. I'm left wondering why I even gave it as much as 2/10...?

Zack (Alex Russell) and Darren (Oliver Ackland) are stepbrothers who are living under the same luxurious roof together while their parents are away. Both boys are on the high school swimming team but Zack is certified as the captain. He's involved with drugs and throwing parties though and is made untouchable by his reputation and his two friends who act like standover men. Darren is far more withdrawn. He spends most of his time studying and playing games but also manages to catch the eye of Xandrie (Adelaide Clemens). She's set to meet him at a party but he arrives late and can't find her. A jealous girl thinks that Xandrie is going to sleep with Zack so she spikes her drink and leaves her at the mercy of Zack and his goons. She is assaulted and left for dead on a beach. With the weight of guilt on his shoulders for ignoring Xandrie, Darren sets out to find out the truth, firstly consulting a security recording of the night. I admire the courage of the Australian film industry, specifically its uncompromised approach in dealing with important social issues. People who value cinema for safe, populist entertainment often sneer at these gritty and challenging films. As such, they regular fail to excite the box office and are viewed foolishly as artistically meritless. But as important as it is for a film to challenge the realities of our society, there is fine line between a well researched critique of an issue, like in Blessed and The Combination and cheap sensationalism and finger pointing. Writer and director Ben C. Lucas cannot find the balance. There's a nastiness running all throughout his film. It's deliberately claustrophobic, filmed with harsh, dark textures and cold steel. It's effective in unsettling us through its look, its heavy ambient sound effects and clever structure too. It begins in medias res, with Xandrie's body on the beach and then goes back in time to work up to the crime. Where it falters is in its lack of moderation. Lucas doesn't believe in any. His film travels from one extreme to another, solely to inflate the drama and reinforce parents' preconceived ideas about their children. Lucas likes to paint broad strokes and is for one blindly nihilistic in his outlook of multimedia. The social networking sites and the text messaging shown in the film regularly lead to miscommunication and rumour. The convenience and usefulness of the technology feels entirely overshadowed and overlooked. Even the possible video evidence of the crime takes a backseat to overly dramatic confrontations. Similarly, teenagers might not be the most pleasant people but there are very few who are completely irredeemable. Yet Lucas tries his best to make us think so about a number of his characters. There's a lot of mean- spirited behaviour, coarse dialogue and the needlessly excessive violence. At the beginning of a film a boy asks Zack about the party to which he responds in asking if he's looking for a corner to blow him. The boy is then punched in the face, without consequence. For whatever reason, a freakish red haired kid is also shown sending pictures of his penis to girls at school. There are multiple public beatings in this film too, with people punched and cracked over the head with bottles, a school shooting and even a more implied torture scene. It's gratuitous, not insightful, because these scenes exist only to be climactic, rather than having a willingness to explore deeper psychological experiences. These problems are frustrating because glimpses of more rounded and developed characters are occasionally visible. Darren is understandably driven by guilt, even if Ackland can't take us to the right emotional levels, beyond his hollow eyes. Russell also makes Zack a more interesting baddie, even if he is a little heavy handed. Zack's a sport jock, but a logical one and uses common sense to distance himself from the chaos. If only Lucas didn't undermine an interesting trait straight after Zack talks himself out of a situation with a panic attack. It weakens our belief in his confidence. Clemens impressed me the most. With limited on screen time she's appropriately more conscious about the situation than anyone else and is as such, more natural, human and touching. The lack of adult characters is still a big pitfall. It's meant to ride the metaphor that these kids have no one to answer to. But their omission is never properly explained and it allows Lucas to distance them from a lot of the blame. Like so much of the film, it just makes us wonder why he's so strictly negative about today's youth.