Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueberger is an Australian teen movie that refreshingly doesn’t paint being an outsider as easy and hip. Instead, our heroine is a bit of a dork at a crossroads. To quote the eminent sociologist Britney Spears, "she's not a girl, not yet a woman." And being Jewish in a snobby, WASP-y private school doesn’t help her cause. Esther’s strange path to self-discovery begins when she befriends tough kid Sonny and poses as a student at her rough and tumble state school.
Like the girl it's about, Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueberger is odd, but very endearing. With good-natured humour, it genuinely charts the pain and confusion of being a teenager. As a person, Esther feels real – she suffers losses and hurts, lashes out and is uncertain about sex. This emotional realism sets the film apart from generic American teen comedies where the focus is on the girl getting pretty so she can get the boy.
Writer-director Cathy Randall might’ve made more of Esther’s very funny younger brother, and of the spy sub-plot, but she does come up with consistently subtle humour and some striking visual compositions.
What’s also consistently beautiful is warm, natural newcomer Danielle Catanzariti as Esther Blueberger. And Keisha Castle-Hughes makes Sonny’s toughness see-through: she’s also a vulnerable kid trying to find her way.
Hey Hey It’s Esther Blueberger rates three and a half stars as a teen movie that’s not too hip to wear its heart on its sleeve.
