Starring Liane Balaban, Tara Spencer-Nairn, Nicholas Campbell, Mary Walsh, Andrew McCarthy, Cathy Moriarity. Written by Tricia Fish. Directed by Allan Moyle. Mooney Pottie (Balaban) lives in the small, coal-mining town of New Waterford, Nova Scotia. Loving the arts and reading, and not really fitting in with her well-meaning family, she longs to get out of town. Being only 15, she has quite a bit of time to wait. A confidant who sees the potential in her is her teacher (McCarthy), and he arranges to get her a scholarship to a New York arts school. She's excited to go but her small town parents (Walsh and Campbell) think 15 is way too young to be exposed to the evils of the big city. It seems the only way to get out of town is to get pregnant, and be sent to an "aunt" in Antigonish to take care of the problem. Teen girls getting pregnant is almost an epidemic in New Waterford, with many of the boys dropping the girl they impregnated as soon as she gets knocked up. Recently come to town is a tough tomboy Lou (Spencer-Nairn) who moved from the Bronx with her mom (Moriarity) to get away from her boxer father. At first the town's girls don't warm to the city girl, that is until she displays her dad's upper cut by knocking out a boy who got one of the girl's pregnant. Sullen Mooney eventually befriends the energetic Lou, and they go around town searching out boys who have done a girl wrong, Lou hired by the girl-done-wrong to exact revenge. Mooney devises a plan for herself to get out of town, and with Lou's help proceeds in a manner that doesn't exactly go according to plan. Winner at the Atlantic Film Festival, New Waterford Girl is a coming-of-age tale involving sex, but never degenerating into Porky's / American Pie racing-to-score antics. Delivered with a light touch and a quirky, fresh sense of humour, the movie is told from the young-female point-of-view. The humour is not dependent on jokes, but rather it is character driven, arising out of the sometimes desperate circumstances the characters find themselves in. It reminds me of the gentle, charming Scottish film Gregory's Girl, where both girls and boys are awkword, and they have many other things on their mind besides sex and the prom. Like the classic Canadian film Going Down The Road, the film deals with a Maritimer's rejection of the lack of choice, this time in impoverished and isolated Cape Breton, and a desire to seek one's fortune in the big city. This time, the big city is New York, not Toronto. And ironically, the Maritimers' loathing of Ontario is illustrated in one of a just-recently-pregnant girl's attempt to think of the worst insult she can, and coming up with "Ontario Lesbo", which incidentally brought down the house at the Cumberland Theatre in Toronto. Low key, and often surprising and moving, there are few false moments. One of those is an awkward, drunken scene where Mooney's teacher unconvincingly tells her he loves her and doesn't want her to go, just after he went to all the trouble in getting her the New York scholarship. Director Moyle continually shoots the dreary and rainy bluffs, the dark, foggy skies, the pounding waves on the coast and the small, poorly built homes to create an atmosphere of isolation, emphasizing how dead-end the townspeoples' lives seem to be. The rapport between Balaban and Spencer-Nairn is natural and engaging. Newcomers to film, they provide an innocence and realness not found in Hollywood teen flicks. Balaban, with a look a little like Natalie Portman, gives the film a gothic, baggy-sweater look like that of a normal, but overly bright teenager. Spencer-Nairn is energetic and brings a contrasting sense of fun to that of the sullen Balaban. The supporting cast is strong as well, with This Hour Has 22 Minutes regular Walsh funny but totally in character, and Campbell quite good as the simple, out-of-touch father who can't understand a thing about Mooney. However, Moriarity is underused, and McCarthy's teacher is the weakest written of all, a sort of plot device to move along Mooney's quest to get out of town. Yet, New Waterford Girl is a delightful story and my favourite film so far this year. If you would like to respond, please click the E-Mail Press Here To Go To The Review List Page