Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger

Saddled with braces and glasses, 14-year-old Esther (Danielle Catanzariti) has problems fitting in at home and at school in this Australian coming-of-age comedy. From her perspective, the private institution she attends features an indistinguishable array of catty blondes, who eat lunch in formations of five, and look like nests of insects from above (Esther often watches them from the classroom where she dines alone). Other than her pet duck and her twin brother Jacob (Christian Byers), Esther has no friends, but doesn't want her perfectionist mother, Grace (Essie Davis), to know, so she invites several classmates to her bat mitzvah party. When none show up, Esther shanghais a local neighborhood girl, Sunni (Keisha Castle-Hughes), who's just as much of a misfit, except she wears it as a badge of pride. After Sunni invites Esther to give her public school a try, the latter falls in with a more welcoming crowd and befriends Sunni's single mother, Mary (Toni Collette), who's less judgmental than Grace. While the change in venue contributes to Esther's greater self-confidence, she also begins to develop bullying tendencies (and lies to her parents about the transfer). After a series of comic and tragic developments, however, Esther learns to stop copying everyone else, and finds her own voice. Soap opera writer Cathy Randall's debut, which recalls both Mean Girls and Muriel's Wedding, is better than most American films portraying the middle-school set. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)