Around the Block

Writer-director Sarah Spillane's Around the Block is an ambitious film set in the downtrodden, strife-torn Redfern district of Sydney that deals with Aboriginal and class issues in Australia that are rarely publicized internationally. A wan-looking Christina Ricci plays the bisexual Dino, an idealistic Californian expat schoolteacher engaged to an upper-middle-class Australian male bigot. Dino teaches in a rough school that serves mostly poor Aboriginal kids, an institution where most of the teaching staff has given up on trying to inspire students. Dino is determined to get an unlikely student production of Hamlet off the ground. Her pet student, Liam (Hunter Page-Lochard), whom Dino convinces to play Hamlet, is the product of a typical Redfern home: his father's a jailbird, and his brother is always in trouble with the cops. Liam eventually has to choose between the dangerous street life or his newfound interest in acting. Unfortunately, Ricci's character is half-realized at best: she comes off as more prideful and self-righteous than compassionate and caring. Optional. (M. Sandlin)