EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
****
Director: Nadi Sha
Screenplay: Nadi Sha and Grant Osborn
Principal cast:
Jordan Dulieu
Freyja Benjamin
Gigi Edgley
Martin Crewes
Siham Yahya
Benjamin Mathews
Country: Australia
Classification: M
Runtime: 90 mins.
Australian release date: 20 October 2022.
Everything in Between is an original debut feature from Australian director Nadi Sha, who co-wrote the screenplay with experienced TV script writer Grant Osborn (Big Brother, My Kitchen Rules). It’s an interesting take on a coming-of-age drama, filmed and set in Sydney, focussing on an 18-year-old male who seems to have everything going for him but is suffering from a deep emotional emptiness, some kind of existential malaise. A lover of science, his studies have led him to conclude that, “We’re all just a bunch of atoms, [so] what’s the point of everything in between?” And then he meets someone who makes him rethink his nihilistic conclusion.
Jason ‘Jay’ Knight (Jordan Dulieu) lives a privileged life in the upmarket eastern suburbs of the city. His father David (Martin Crewes) is a successful businessman with a taste for recreational drugs and extramarital affairs and his mother ‘Dee’ (Gigi Edgley) is a socialite with a penchant for vodka and long lunches. He’s a loner who’s been withdrawn since childhood and has had therapy with little success; as his dad puts it, “He has always been an oddball.” His parents are concerned but blithely go about their selfish lives regardless – until the day that an Uber driver stops Jay from jumping off a cliff and they realise just how serious his depression has become. While awaiting psychiatric assessment at a hospital, Jay is drawn into conversation with an older woman, Liz (Freyja Benjamin), a tattooed, dope-smoking free spirit from San Francisco in her late twenties who’s backpacking around the world “lookin’ for adventure and whatever comes her way,” to paraphrase the old Steppenwolf song Born to Be Wild. She’s waiting for a diagnosis, too, and when it comes it’s not good. As they learn more about each other in the following days, Liz tries to teach Jay that there’s much more to life than he thinks and that “everything in between” is the very point of existence.
These are pretty weighty matters to take on in a first film but, for the most part, Sha has handled the material well and Everything in Between avoids becoming cliched or cloying. That’s largely due to the performances of the chief protagonists. Martin Crewes and Gigi Edgley are old hands at the acting game, so it’s not surprising that they deliver convincing portrayals of their self-centred characters and manage to make them transform into altogether more sensitive people when Dave and Dee realise how out of their depth they are; Dulieu and Benjamin, on the other hand, are newcomers to feature-length adult drama but they, too, bring depth to their roles, particularly Benjamin. Both their parts could have easily become caricatures, she the life-loving hippy and he the sulky teenager, but they have successfully avoided those pitfalls. Dulieu’s Jay is a difficult character to play sympathetically, given that initially he’s so withdrawn he barely speaks and spends a fair amount of time laying on his bed looking morose.
Everything in Between is an ambitious enterprise, given that its theatrical release seems to be in the hands of the production company, without a third-party distributor involved, an unusual move in the film business. Let’s hope it works for them because it’s a worthy showcase for a number of talented new faces, both behind and in front of the camera.
Screenplay: Nadi Sha and Grant Osborn
Principal cast:
Jordan Dulieu
Freyja Benjamin
Gigi Edgley
Martin Crewes
Siham Yahya
Benjamin Mathews
Country: Australia
Classification: M
Runtime: 90 mins.
Australian release date: 20 October 2022.
Everything in Between is an original debut feature from Australian director Nadi Sha, who co-wrote the screenplay with experienced TV script writer Grant Osborn (Big Brother, My Kitchen Rules). It’s an interesting take on a coming-of-age drama, filmed and set in Sydney, focussing on an 18-year-old male who seems to have everything going for him but is suffering from a deep emotional emptiness, some kind of existential malaise. A lover of science, his studies have led him to conclude that, “We’re all just a bunch of atoms, [so] what’s the point of everything in between?” And then he meets someone who makes him rethink his nihilistic conclusion.
Jason ‘Jay’ Knight (Jordan Dulieu) lives a privileged life in the upmarket eastern suburbs of the city. His father David (Martin Crewes) is a successful businessman with a taste for recreational drugs and extramarital affairs and his mother ‘Dee’ (Gigi Edgley) is a socialite with a penchant for vodka and long lunches. He’s a loner who’s been withdrawn since childhood and has had therapy with little success; as his dad puts it, “He has always been an oddball.” His parents are concerned but blithely go about their selfish lives regardless – until the day that an Uber driver stops Jay from jumping off a cliff and they realise just how serious his depression has become. While awaiting psychiatric assessment at a hospital, Jay is drawn into conversation with an older woman, Liz (Freyja Benjamin), a tattooed, dope-smoking free spirit from San Francisco in her late twenties who’s backpacking around the world “lookin’ for adventure and whatever comes her way,” to paraphrase the old Steppenwolf song Born to Be Wild. She’s waiting for a diagnosis, too, and when it comes it’s not good. As they learn more about each other in the following days, Liz tries to teach Jay that there’s much more to life than he thinks and that “everything in between” is the very point of existence.
These are pretty weighty matters to take on in a first film but, for the most part, Sha has handled the material well and Everything in Between avoids becoming cliched or cloying. That’s largely due to the performances of the chief protagonists. Martin Crewes and Gigi Edgley are old hands at the acting game, so it’s not surprising that they deliver convincing portrayals of their self-centred characters and manage to make them transform into altogether more sensitive people when Dave and Dee realise how out of their depth they are; Dulieu and Benjamin, on the other hand, are newcomers to feature-length adult drama but they, too, bring depth to their roles, particularly Benjamin. Both their parts could have easily become caricatures, she the life-loving hippy and he the sulky teenager, but they have successfully avoided those pitfalls. Dulieu’s Jay is a difficult character to play sympathetically, given that initially he’s so withdrawn he barely speaks and spends a fair amount of time laying on his bed looking morose.
Everything in Between is an ambitious enterprise, given that its theatrical release seems to be in the hands of the production company, without a third-party distributor involved, an unusual move in the film business. Let’s hope it works for them because it’s a worthy showcase for a number of talented new faces, both behind and in front of the camera.