VIDEO DISCOVERY : Australian ‘Voice’ Rings True to Preteen Experience

“The Year My Voice Broke” is one of those joyous films that rises above its own limitations.

Despite a small production budget and a character-driven plot that doesn’t furnish a lot of action, John Duigan’s 1988 film from Australia succeeds on many levels, including brilliantly formed characters who make you care about them.

The film takes place in New South Wales in the early 1960s, and the two preteen principals, Noah Taylor as Danny and Loene Carmen as Freyda (a preteen, Aussie Brigitte Bardot), are lifelong buddies who find the new sexual stirring they feel toward each other both disturbing and fun. Danny lies on his bed in fits of desire and pretends to still be merely Freyda’s pal; Freyda sublimates her desire for Danny through a sexual relationship with the town’s rebel boy.

The characters in this film are so good and so well acted by these two unknown kids from Down Under that they make a lot of the new big-budget Hollywood films out to be exactly what they are: all form and no substance.

“The Year My Voice Broke” is definitely a contender for membership in that category of teen- Angst classics that includes “Rebel Without a Cause” and “Stand by Me.” It perfectly mirrors what it is to feel the bittersweet ache of embracing unknown adulthood and leaving the safety of childhood behind.

These days, if you expect intelligence and controlled characterization from a film, more often than not you will be disappointed. But with “The Year My Voice Broke,” you’ll rewind the film saying, “That’s exactly what it felt like. How did they do that?”

“The Year My Voice Broke” (1988), written and directed by John Duigan. 103 minutes. Rated PG-13.