Anywhere But Here review

It is said in motion picture circles that decent casting gets you more than half way there, which is - of course - in itself only partly true.

You can fill a movie with stars up the Wazoo, or fine tune your list with the ultimate combo of big names and real actors, but if the script's lame and the director has all the vision of a carthorse, you're going to get manure. Fresh manure with bells on maybe, but manure all the same.

We refer you to Stepmom, featuring the undisputed talents of Julia Roberts, Ed Harris and Susan Sarandon for details.

So it comes as a major relief to see that Sarandon's subsequent outing alongside Natalie Portman is marked by the right people in the right roles given the right words to say in the right order.

Abandoning solid but apparently boring husband Ted (Ray Baker) and small town life in Wisconsin, Adele August (Susan Sarandon) uproots 14-year-old Ann (Natalie Portman) for new, West Coast horizons in LA.

But Ann is seriously miffed. She didn't want to leave Bay City, she loves stepdad Ted, she misses cousin Benny (Shawn Hatosy) with a passion, and she really has no time for her mother's vicarious dreams of child acting stardom.

And when it becomes rapidly clear that not all - in fact, very few - of the streets in Beverly Hills are paved with gold, the tensions of even living a normal life repeatedly bring Ann and Adele to the point where they're either going to have to pull together, or pull apart.

Taking a break from seducing a boy considerably younger than herself in a galaxy far, far away, Portman here slips into the more orthodox teenage behaviour of 'Arguing With Mom', although this doesn't tell the whole story.

For what gives this finding-one's-place-in-the-world drama its edge is that both characters are going through a rites-of-passage turmoil - that although Ann's confusion and struggle is the more obvious coming-of-age variety, Adele is experiencing much the same thing.

And as a result, the lines of paternal responsibility begin to blur, with Ann finding herself frequently required to play Mum, to provide the sensible approach and be wise beyond her years.

So the movie doesn't centre just around Portman's teen attempting to spread her wings, nor simply Sarandon's search for her perfect life with yet another fresh start, but rather this single, mother-daughter unit: the effect various events have on their relationship and the effect their relationship has on their individual lives.

Okay, so however you cut it, this is still a chick-flick-arama, but for all the emotion, tears and car journey sing-alongs flying about, it's a well-performed, reasonably intelligent and perceptive drama that refuses to conform to the vacuous common denominator normally associated with this genre.