The plot follows 14-year-old Greta Driscoll, a shy and awkward teenager holding on to adolescence, whose bubble of obscure loserdom is burst when her parents throw her a surprise 15th birthday party and invite the whole school!
Not every chance director Rosemary Myers takes in her debut feature pays off. But the point is, at least she takes some, and when they work, they work to perfection.
"Girl Asleep" isn't easy to categorize. It's a wild curiosity that shifts on a whim. In that sense, there couldn't be a better metaphor for the inner workings of a teenage girl's mind.
Highly creative work from Rosemary Myers, and while she hasn't mastered tonal changes, she's beginning a promising career with this endearingly oddball movie.
Plays like the love child of Jane Campion and Guy Maddin, an otherworldly quinceañera that celebrates female rites of passage and the hallucinatory power of film.
Overall, this is a delightful film from an exciting new voice in Australian cinema and, even better, it offers teenagers a refreshing take on adolescence.
At once a throwback to so many of the off-kilter Australian films of the '70s and '80s and a declaration of a promising new voice, Girl Asleep doesn't always hold together...But that's all part of the film's adventurous appeal.
