In New South Wales, Jared surfs with his mates and has a first girl. He hosts a beach party for his older pal, Ricko, and witnesses four of his mates gang-rape a 15 year old. He does nothing, and the next day, she's found murdered. At school, the boys and the girls react: the girls with anger at the perpetrators, the boys with jeering at the dead girl's morality. The students' parents have their own responses. Jared retreats into angry silence, disgusted that he did nothing to help the dead girl. Meanwhile, his mother wants to talk to him about her impending cancer surgery, the police want to know what he saw, and his friend Ricko wants an alibi. Jared's cracking under the pressure.
Acting
Laurence Breuls' simmering rage barely contained behind surf-boy blankness.
Writing
Nick Enright's stage roots give every scene theatrical punch.
Direction
Vidler's surf montages weaponize Australian beach nostalgia.
Director
Steven Vidler
Laurence Breuls
Jared Kirby
Linda Cropper
Diane Kirby
Simon Lyndon
Brett "Ricko" Ricketson
Chris Haywood
Det. Sgt. Wilansky
Rebecca Smart
Cherie Milenko
Jeanette Cronin
Lesley Warner
David Field
Ken Warner
Justine Clarke
Tiffany
Essie Davis
Det. Gilhooley
Jessica Napier
Rachel Ackland
Bojana Novaković
Tracy Warner
John Howard
Len Kirby
Geoff Morrell
Stewart Ackland
Cameron Nugent
Jason
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Adapted from Nick Enright's 1992 play 'A Property of the Clan,' commissioned by a school near where Leigh Leigh was murdered. The community initially wanted the story buried, not staged.
The surf scenes aren't just pretty—they mirror Jared's emotional state: above water, performing freedom; below, drowning in complicity. The ocean becomes his church and his prison.
AU
