"The Black Balloon" Movie

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The Black Balloon
Rated M
Review by Margaret Pomeranz

Fresh from its win of the Crystal Bear in the Generation 14 Plus Section at the recent Berlin Film Festival comes THE BLACK BALLOON by first-time co-writer/director Elissa Down.

It’s about the Mollison family, Army Dad, Simon, (ERIK THOMSON), very pregnant Mum, Maggie, (TONI COLLETTE), and sons Thomas, (RHYS WAKEFIELD and Charlie, (LUKE FORD). Charlie is autistic.

The family has recently moved to the outer suburbs of Sydney, so Thomas has to fit into a new school yet again and cope with Charlie when Maggie has to rest up.

Thomas’s burgeoning relationship with Jackie, (GEMMA WARD), is going fine but Thomas is becoming increasingly resentful of the burdens placed on him by his brother.

This is such a strong film. The role of Thomas is a knife-edge one, it could so easily be made unsympathetic, but RHYS WAKEFIELD makes us empathise with Thomas’s agonies, and LUKE FORD makes Charlie both loveable and exasperating, another big achievement.

But towering over the film is the performance of TONI COLLETTE, she is just so good in every role she takes on, and ERIK THOMSON gives solid support as Simon. Model turned actress GEMMA WARD steps up to the plate.

The director Elissa Down grew up with two autistic brothers so there’s a real truth to what we see in The Black Balloon.

It’s a very auspicious debut for this young Australian filmmaker.