Flirting

Stars: Nicole Kidman (Far and Away, Billy Bathgate, Days of Thunder), Noah Taylor (Me Year My Voice Broke), Thandie Newton. Australian writer/director John Duigan and the impish Noah Taylor are back in this delightful sequel to 1988's The Year My Voice Broke. This time out, Danny Embling (Taylor) has been sent to St. Albans, an all-boys boarding school, where bad food and regular beatings from the headmaster are the order of the day. A bit of a smart aleck, Danny has difficulties fitting in with the other boys, but his attention is soon diverted when he meets a young Ugandan beauty named Thandiwe (Thandie Newton) from the neighboring girl's school across the lake. The time is 1965. As Danny and Thandiwe take tentative steps into the world of sex, cataclysmic events are taking place in Thandiwe's native Uganda under the iron dictatorship of the crazed butcher Idi Amin. Although the young lovers are able to hurdle the color barrier with ease, world politics eventually threaten to separate the pair. Meanwhile, Danny and Thandiwe have a lot of fun outsmarting their elders and standing up against their peers (Danny even fights for Thandiwe's honor in a memorable boxing match), and we have a lot of fun watching them. Flirting is a wonderfully honest film about teenage love and peer pressure. It's a perfect spring romance. Audience: Anyone looking for an uplifting "feel good" movie.