Romeo and Juliet... beer... brown birds... postcards... and sex... It was the very best time of their lives. They just didn't know it yet.
A few months ago 16-year-old Dan (Richard Wilson) had to make a choice. Go to Geneva with his parents for a year, board at school or move into a house with his uni student bass-playing aunt, Jacq (Robin McLeavy), and her friend, Naomi (Emma Lung). He picked Jacq's place.
Now he's doing his last year at school and trying not to spin out. Trying to be cool. Trying to pick up a few skills for surviving in the adult world. Problem is, he falls for Naomi, and things become much, much more confusing.
As Dan fumbles through the process of forming a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, he also learns about making pesto, interpreting the fish tank scene from Romeo and Juliet, why almost all birds are one of the 48 shades of brown, and why his best course of action is just to be himself.
Based on the award-winning novel by Nick Earls.
Special Agent Matti
48 shades is a bright and undaunted Australian coming-of-age movie for the new millennium. It captures perfectly the time when a boy starts discovering the man he will become. It's innocence, it's optimism, it's evaluation, it's choices, it's understanding, it's love, it's infatuation, it's hope, it's challenges, it's revelation, it's sunshine, it's summer, it's sex, it's contentment, it's growth, it's virginity, it's friendship, it's family, it's finding that the world is a bigger place than you realised, it's finding that life is a lot more complex than you realised, it's taking that first step on the road to discovery. It makes you want to be young all over again.
M (Moderate sexual references and themes, infrequent moderate coarse language)
96 minutes (1:36 hours)
Film: 31 August 2006
DVD retail: 7 February 2007
