Emerging writers show promise, and performances are strong in this multi-story feature which feels limited by its own formatGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingHere Out West begins with the grandmother of a newborn baby nicking off with the bub – kidnapping the child from hospital after authorities deemed her daughter unfit to care for it. In an ordinary film, this dramatic event would be a MacGuffin that kickstarts the plot and sets the subsequent storyline in motion, sparking obvious questions such as “what was she thinking?” and “what happens next?”
However in this anthology (the opening night film of this year’s
Sydney film festival) directed by Fadia Abboud, Lucy Gaffy, Julie Kalceff, Ana Kokkinos and Leah Purcell, working from scripts by eight
Australian writers, it is not so much the start of a narrative but a loose connective tissue binding short and disparate vignettes. The film-makers ignore the aforementioned questions and instead introduce us to people living in western Sydney, moving between them in a ‘day in the life of’ style, where we encounter these characters in generally dramatic circumstances but soon say goodbye to them also, rarely to return.