Tan Lines

It's the summer holidays in small town Australia, where all the kids have to sustain them for weeks on end is a combination of surfing, skateboarding and parties. But sixteen-year-old Midget (Baxter) is looking for something more. When Cass (O'Leary), his best friend's brother, returns to town four years after leaving under a cloud, Midget is attracted to this exotic prodigal son, and the pair begin a passionate relationship that will teach Midget a few things about life. As gay-themed coming-of-age stories go, Tan Lines is some way from the top of the pile, certainly nowhere near as strong or emotionally involving as something like Summer Storm, but it at least gives us a group of characters without too much pretension or affectation, elevated by a remarkably mature performance from Baxter. As though sensing the sparseness of his story, writer/director Aldridge tries to dress it up by channelling David Lynch into Home & Away, filling the town with self-consciously quirky supporting characters instead of concentrating on Midget's journey. He's a terrific character, intelligent and sensitive but impudent and forthright at the same time, and why he's attracted to the selfish and hard to like Cass is initially difficult to gauge. But it soon becomes clear that, amid the soul-crushing provincialism of his existence, Cass represents a lifestyle and a freedom that he's just never known, and it's this ideal that he falls for as much as the boy himself. [Paul Greenwood]