“Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)”
Not Rated. On VOD
Grade: B+
If you took Noel Coward’s stage perennial “Blithe Spirit,” which was recently adapted to the screen with Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher and Leslie Mann, and merged it with the coming-of-age story of a gay Australian high school student, you’d have festival favorite “Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt).” It’s a cute premise and if the film doesn’t offer much beyond cuteness (and sincerity and sweetness), that’s OK because the story has a big heart. Ellie (likable Sophie Hawkshaw) is the 17-year-old daughter of high-strung single mother Erica (Marta Dusseldorp), an attorney whose gay sister Tara died in a car accident before Ellie was born. Erica’s best friend is Tara’s ex Patty (Rachel House), an Uber driver, who is Ellie’s “other” mother. Ellie is trying to summon up the courage to ask her classmate Abbie (Zoe Terakes) to the school “formal” aka prom. But she is having a hard time, and the stress of it all is taking a toll on her relationship with her mom, who is her best friend. Things go from bad to worse when the spirit of her dead Aunt Tara (Julia Billington) appears and begins offering advice. Ellie gets enough of that from an online personality she follows, a spiritual guru named Faith Underwood (Chiara Gizzi).
Tara says that she is Ellie’s “fairy godmother” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and that she is there to help Ellie to come out at school. The object of Ellie’s attention, Abbie, is a young woman who is into horses. Ellie pretends to be in detention to get near Abbie, who is there for using the “C-word” in class. Abbie asks Ellie why she, a “school captain,” has detention, and Ellie lies, saying “littering.” Little does she know that Abbie finds littering abhorrent. Ellie tries to teach her aunt’s ghost about such things as texting and podcasts. Her dead aunt tries to help her to follow her heart. When Abbie, who was outed by a girlfriend she had a crush on, inadvertently does a presentation about Ellie’s dead aunt, who was a pioneering gay rights activist, life gets more complicated for Ellie.
Written and directed by Monica Zanetti and dedicated to her “guncles” aka gay uncles, “Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)” is not a heavy lifter. It is a light comedy. But there is some genuine pain in this story, and the cast carries it all into the end zone with aplomb. With her buttons, badges, denim jacket and aviator glasses, Aunt Tara is so 1980s. You will have to endure the torture of watching Australian high school students dance. But you will also see real footage of a real Aussie gay rights demonstration from 1989. “Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)” is not Noel Coward. But Hawkshaw’s performance is going to strike a resonant chord for a lot of young people.
(“Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)” contains off-color language and mature themes)
"sweet" - Google News
August 28, 2021 at 09:26AM
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‘Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt)’ light, sweet, but packs a punch - Boston Herald
"sweet" - Google News
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