Love lost and found

REVIEW BY MARGARET ALLUM

Lost and Delirious
Directed by Lea Pool
With Mischa Barton, Piper Perabo and Jessica Pare
Screening at the Sydney Film Festival, State Theatre and Dendy Opera Quays, until June 22

Mary "Mouse" Bradford (played by Mischa Barton) is a young woman grieving for her mother, who died three years before. Since her father's remarriage, she no longer seems to have a place in his life and consequently finds herself bundled off to Perkin's Girls College boarding school.

Daunted by the prospect of her new life, her fears are quickly assuaged when she is taken under the collective wings of close friends Pauline (Piper Perabo) and Tori (Jessica Pare), her new room-mates. Each share painful family experiences and find comfort in each other's company.

Pauline was given up for adoption by her Native-American mother, for whom she is searching. Tori is from a wealthy family which has set impossibly high goals for her to achieve. Mary is distraught by the thought that she is starting forget what her mother looked like.

Settling into the wild lifestyle of her new friends, Mary is at first confused by the depth of Pauline and Tori's relationship, which is far deeper than close friendship. Eventually though, the naive Mary gets used to her enforced proximity to her room-mates developing sexual discovery of each other.

Pauline is happy to be open about her relationship, but Tori, feeling immense pressure from the constraints her family has imposed, is less enthusiastic about being public with her feelings. After the two are caught together, the pressure of her family's expectations proves too difficult for Tori to shoulder, so she opts for a more conventional teenage coupling.

Pauline's desperate quest to win back Tori's heart leads to some powerful and poignant scenes that are full of the agony of lost love.

Meanwhile, Mary is gaining confidence amid the romantic chaos, and finds friendship with the school gardener. Her eyes are being opened to a new and bewildering world, but she grows with each new experience.

Lost and Delirious was popular at the Sydney Film Festival and reportedly at the Sundance festival earlier this year. A Canadian production, the first English language film directed by Lea Pool (who previously made Emporte-moi — "Set Me Free"), it is likely to have a season in at least Sydney, and hopefully other cities.

Adapted from Susan Swan's novel The Wives of Bath, by Toronto screenwriter Judith Thompson, it is a tender film with some excellent performances by the three young stars, and by Jackie Burroughs and Mimi Kuzyk, who play two teachers who both admire and wish to protect the delicate youthful experiences of these young women.

From GLW issue 452