2008, USA
Comedy, Drama, Family
Review printed in The Desert Sun.
In preteen-dom, every girl must navigate a minefield of cliques and hormones in order to find themselves. In Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger, Esther does one better by not only navigating but also creating detailed charts and observations about the world of cloned Heathers that surrounds her. She may be in Oz, but this Dorothy has no desire to return to a sheltered black and white world.
Australian writer-director Cathy Randall makes her debut with this sharp, quirky production that nails life at an awkward age and exposes the mimicry which often overshadows unique individuals. Danielle Catanzariti is introduced in her first performance as Esther, and she does so with a comic timing that reveals either a history on stage or a charmingly idiosyncratic personality much like her character.
Esther and her twin brother Jacob (Christian Byers, December Boys) are social outcasts yet take life in stride as they visually dissect the robotic students who attend their private school. When Esther meets Sunni (a maturing Keisha Castle-Hughes, former Whale Rider darling), a rebellious but thoughtful girl from the other side of the tracks, Esther becomes enchanted with the idea of attending Sunni's far less rigid public school, and the two devise a scheme for her to do so. The cliques are still rampant, but at least there is more variety. Esther settles happily into Sunni's "lion pit" group, so named as the school appropriately sits atop former zoo grounds.
The film is a fun telling of girls finding their true selves without a need for extremes. Esther's family is peculiar both in the over-the-top normalcy of her parents and the borderline psychotic nature of her brother, and her escape to the jungle of girls' school allows for a broader collage. Even the soundtrack is filled with girls' choirs covering seemingly random songs, from "House of the Rising Sun" to "Melt with You."
Though the film grazes in familiar territory, it avoids the acerbic tone of Mean Girls and treads lightly even as Esther tries out her newly minted tough girl persona. Though Sunni attempts to keep her in check, Esther's lies and desire for a larger audience of acceptance become a compulsion. Every time she climbs another rung of the social ladder, the brass ring continues to rise higher and out of reach.
Sunni's character allows for a quieter study of a balanced but unstructured life, and a sweet relationship is revealed between her and her two-job, rock n' roll mom (Toni Collette in a nice cameo). However, the film takes an unnecessarily overdramatic turn when this story arc is squeezed too tightly, and many of the final scenes feel haphazard and to be lacking focus.
Ultimately, Blueburger trips over itself in an attempt to be an all inclusive film, but this factor does not destroy a film with which so many will identify. The film may not be perfect, but then neither is being a teenager. At least Esther has fun trying.