Lights, Camera, Action! | A Dozen Summers (Movie Review)

A Dozen Summers (UK Rating: PG)

The story, such as it is, takes the audience into the lives of twins Maisie and Daisy (Scarlet and Hero Hall, respectively). The camera follows them at school - hanging out with their friends and standing up to the school bully - and at home, where they live with their dad, who is "good at the ordinary stuff." Their mother, Jacqueline (Sarah Warren), on the other hand, is pursuing her life as a model ("not a real one," as Daisy pointedly observes) and flitting from one unsuitable boyfriend to another.

This isn't a film with a lot of action, but that's not the point, as it aims to take a different approach to children's films, setting out its stall from the opening shot with its saccharine voiceover from Colin Baker - a parody of the more familiar style. It doesn't last long, because he's stopped short by the two girls and, from thereon in, they are in control. Making a film themselves means that they can do anything: all they have to do is change scenes - real or fantasy - by clicking their fingers, Mary Poppins-style, and that's not the only reference scattered throughout the story, mainly for the benefit of the older viewers. Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Cameron's Titanic, and even Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal all find their way in there.

There are some great visual gags, and it is definitely worth keeping an eye on the background, as well as whatever's happening in the foreground, since there is an evens chance of something amusingly appropriate, or just downright surreal, going on there. Even guardians of the English language have their moment, with a sign on the door of the local shop proclaiming "Only three studnets allowed," and there's another identical one inside.

8/10

Great - Silver Award

A Dozen Summers takes an approach to children's films that should be welcomed with open arms. Fresh, funny, and quirky to the point of eccentric, it has an individual charm all of its own, neatly overturning all the clichés and making it a movie both for and about children. Hopefully, it will get a prolonged roll out, so watch out for that. Better still, pester any local cinemas to show it!