Abbie Cornish plays Heidi, a young woman who is sexually an adult but emotionally still a child, who has sex but wants intimacy. Following an incident involving her mothers boyfriend Heidi runs away to Jindabyne. There she finds a town in shut down mode, the ski season over and the tourists are largely gone and seemingly no hope of surviving without any money for more than a few days. However things start to turn around when Heidi meets Joe (Sam Worthington), a local lad with emotional issues of his own with whom she starts a fractured relationship. Through Joe Heidi meets Irene (Lynette Curran), a recent widow who runs a local B&B and who agrees to rent Heidi her son's old apartment, free of charge until she gets a job, which she soon does at the local BP. This somewhat mundane existence can't last of course and when the façade begins to crack Heidi is faced with a choice either deal with her demons or continue down a self-destructive spiral that can only end when she is dead.

Somersault features strong writing and directing from Shortland, who has elicited excellent performances from all her actors but particularly Cornish and Worthington. There is a beautiful unobtrusive score by Decoder Ring that gives the film a wonderful transcendental atmosphere. While Robert Humphreys cinematography is stunning. The film does have some minor flaws, in that some of its characterisation, writing and shot selection does not fully work but these are really inconsequential and do not detract from the film overall. This is the best Australian film that I have seen since Australian Rules and marks Cate Shortland as a talent to watch. The film was rewarded at last year’s AFI awards (Australian Film Institute), where it won 13 awards, including best film, best director, best actor, actress, cinematographer and score.

Inside the Snow Dome – Making Somersault (24m 37s)

This is fairly standard making of which features interviews with quite a wide cross section of the cast and crew. It includes behind the scenes footage of the shoot, discusses the films casting, its themes and the shooting process. It is a good nutshell guide to the films making, which avoids being a puff piece. One of the more interesting tidbits is that it took only 9 months from commencing shooting on the film to its premiere at Cannes and that much of the crew had worked before on Shortland’s previous short films Joy and Flowergirl. The only annoying aspect of the making of is its over use of completed shots from the finished film.

Deleted Scenes (9m 1 s)

There are eight deleted scenes. They are homework, caravan, motel room, Irene’s reception, Joe’s parents, Bianca’s bedroom, matches, Karl’s rabbit. There is a play all function and optional commentary from Shortland. All the sequences are relatively short and do not add very much to the film, hence their deletion. Shortland makes some relatively interesting points about each and the commentary for these sequences makes up somewhat from the lack of a feature length commentary, though it seems a little strange one was not recorded.

Shooting Somersault: On location interview with cinematographer Robert Humphreys (15m 13s)

This is an interesting interview that explores in detail the technical aspects of the shoot and exactly how the visual palette of the film was achieved. The overall techniques used in the film were road tested to large degree on Shortland’s shortfilm Flowergirl, on which Humphreys also served as DOP. Part of this interview can also be seen in the making of on the disc.

Short Film – Flowergirl (18m 55s)

This was Shortland’s first film and was made in 1999. The film follows a Japanese teenager in his last few days in Australia before he has to return to Japan to work in fathers business. A journey which is made all the harder for him because he is secretly in love with his flatmate, the flowergirl of the films title. Like Somersault the film is wonderfully atmospheric and Shortland really creates a believable interesting world.

Trailer

The film’s trailer, which does a good job at selling the films overall mood and direction.

Soundtrack