Teenage runaway Grace (excellent newcomer Odessa Young) is crossing outback Western Australia on a bus with her friend Sappho (Kenya Pearson). The girls flirt with a fellow passenger, an older teen called Jamie (Harry Anderson), who’s not all that he seems. Soon Grace’s parents Dan and Denise (Richard Roxburgh and Radha Mitchell) come looking for their vanished daughter, and it’s clear the marriage has problems: each harbours secrets from the other.
The new film from Aussie writer-director Sue Brooks (Japanese Story) borrows a leaf from the Quentin Tarantino book of fractured narrative, jumping back and forth in time to build a jigsaw of a family in crisis, everyone in search of something elusive from life. Brooks’ screenplay is wryly funny about human behaviour, keenly observing the awkward ways anxious people rub up against each other. Roxburgh and Mitchell give well-tuned comic performances and veteran actor Terry Norris steals scenes as the elderly private detective who joins the couple on their search. If you yearn for an evocative, intriguing local film to see on Australia Day, this one will not disappoint.