When fifteen year old Milla (Eliza Scanlon) is waiting at the train station on her way to school she finds herself whisked off her feet by Moses (Toby Wallace). The fact that he is a drug dealer and addict mortifies her parents Anna (Essie Davis) and Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) but given she has terminal cancer and they want her to be happy they persevere.

Babyteeth is a beautiful heart rending film that is so much more than the “teenager who finds love before they die” trope that it could have been in the wrong hands. With feature film debuts for writer Rita Kalnejais and director Shannon Murphy it also marks out some special talent behind the camera to watch.

The story itself focuses on Milla and her mum and dad. Each character is delicately drawn out with their own hopes, fears and pressures that consume them at this time. The performances from each actor are also startlingly good. Essie Davis who was also in the excellent True History Of The Kelly Gang this year plays a highly medicated mother who feels so guilty about her past career as a pianist she does not want to play for fear it interrupts her daughters wellbeing. Ben Mendelsohn so often cast as the Hollywood villain in the likes of Ready Player One and Robin Hood (2018) is able to really show off how great an actor he is as the psychiatrist father willing to house a drug addict to make his daughter happy. Whilst Eliza Scanlen who was seen recently in one of the films of 2019 Little Women (2019) puts in a performance that surely marks her as an up and coming actress to watch.

The film features moments of reflection with beautiful photography, moments of joy most notably with music, both classical and contemporary as accompaniment and of course moments of extreme sadness.

A film worth visiting the cinema for right now.