When Fall Comes

FRANKIE AVALON and Annette Funicello would not recognize the teenage beach culture depicted in Bruce Beresford's Puberty Blues. In this Australian import, the surfers and their girls don't sing and dance blissfully, and they certainly don't undergo innocuous adventures cuddling under the moonlight.

The boys and girls have brutally unromantic relationships. On a sunny day, they gather on the beach. The guys display their masculinity by exploiting the surf with their surfboards, while their passive chicks annoint their scantly clad physiques with suntan lotion and watch their mates. At night, they either roam the streets in search of action, or they party wildly at someone's house. Unlike Frankie, Annette and their chums who would sit around a campfire and sing sweetly, these teenagers enjoy themselves by drinking, getting high and having sex.

These relationships are very male-oriented. If a guy wants a girl, he tells someone to tell her. If she agrees, she is his, body and all. Just anyone can't belong to this exclusive society; the two heroines--Debbie (Nell Schofield) and Sue (Jad Capelja)--come from good middle-class homes, do well at school, and consequently are initially classified as "nerds" (The word means the same in Australian.) The two aspire to join the surfer gang, shedding their morals by cheating on exams, getting drunk, and getting laid.

Their adventures are rough as they scratch and claw their way to the ranks of the in-crowd. Beresford lets on that this is only a phase the girls are experiencing, but he doesn't spare them any pain, as they deceive their parents, get suspended from school, and stagnate with their new friends.

Throughout the film, the actors give low key performances. Beneath their sun-scorched faces, their eyes reveal their shiftlessness and their painful adolescence that makes them cruel to outsiders and frequently to each other. Capelja's Sue has a relatively easy transformation into a surfer girl--she gets hooked up to a relatively nice, scraggly guy who "screws" her on occasion. Capelja is mellow, a perfect foil for the more turbulent personality of Schofield's Debbie. Schofield faithfully portrays a confused teenager whose parents just don't understand her growing pains, and who reluctantly submits herself to the sexual advances of her first surfer beau. Although Debbie's exploits play havoc with her personality, Schofield lets us watch her indecision, her confusion, and ultimately her resolution to the crazy summer.

The unassuming acting contributes to the honest view of the Australian culture, which is filled with highly disciplined schools and lives off the seashore. Beresford is well known for placing his characters against breathtaking, fresh, wide-open landscapes, whether in America's as in Tender Mercies, or in a war-torn Australia as in the poignant Breaker Moram.

What distinguishes Puberty Blues from other films about teenage escapades and painful experiences during rebellious adolescence is its candid outlook at a tightly defined peer subculture. The heroines perceptions are warped by their fascination with being accepted, and their desires for freedom are quelled not by authority figures like parents but by their own burgeoning awareness of their own needs--which do not necessarily include belonging to the cool surfer clique: We identify with Debbie and Sue because their struggles with independence are fresh and vivid, and at times terribly frustrating. Beresford doesn't condemn these characters. Rather he reaffirms our beliefs that puberty isn't just cuddling around a sparkling campfire.