Occasional Coarse Language

Min, Sara Brown, is 21, and has been sharing a house with a girlfriend in inner Sydney but everything`s going wrong. Her relationship with her boyfriend has ended, she needs a new place to live; she`s worried about her weight, and about her Dad, who`s in hospital for surgery; and, to top it all, she`s lost her job. Her best friend, Jaz, Astrid Grant, is full of helpful advice. She knows of a sensitive new age guy called David, Nicholas Bishop, who`s looking for someone to share his house because he`s broken up with his girlfriend. Jaz reckons maybe Min can kill two birds with one stone. But David isn`t exactly Min`s type...First-time writer director Brad Hayward, with no formal training in film, showed considerable flair and enterprise when, without help from the funding bodies, he went out and made this low budget movie about inner-city life. And he was fortunate that the people at Village Roadshow liked the film, helped him pay for post-production, and are getting behind a distribution push. Hayward`s depiction of Min and her friends is probably accurate, but it`s a bit depressing too. The world of these seemingly intelligent young women revolves around Melrose Place, fast food and chatter about sex. They`re not that much different from Murray Fahey`s Dags. Is that really all there is? Sara Browne is impressive as the likeable Min, and though at times Hayward`s handling is a little stiff and strident, Occasional Coarse Language, despite the limited horizons of its protagonists, is a promising debut.