The Map Reader

All things considered this is reasonably decent flick about an introverted 16yo boy who's father bolted soon after he was born.

Since Michael was a small boy he's been obsessed by maps - a pastime which doesn't play out so well as a mid-teen amid the juvenile jungle of high school.

His mother, played by .accomplished actor Rebecca Gibney, escapes her own form of solitary confinement via a regular bottle of New Zealand sav blanc. She's a sympathetic character who just wants her boy to experience the big wide world he's studied back to front.

When Michael's hormones are awakened by local school girl Allison, and a stunning blind girl Mary (Bonnie Soper), the tectonic plates of his own small world begin to shift.

The problem with The Map Reader, besides the title, is a few characters don't quite ring true. Frustratingly, stunted Michael is afforded such limited personality as to question why the lecherous 'lads' group would include him in their misadventures. Meanwhile, Allison doesn't carry herself like someone who's physically abused by her father and emotionally by Michael's so-called mates, and there's something about Mary's provocative, giggly persona, despite her mother's awful treatment of her, that feels contrived to serve an unlikely though satisfying outcome

That said, there's some nice observations about breaking free of the prisons people construct for themselves and those thrust upon them. And the emotional penultimate scene, a flashback which morphs from reality to metaphor, is beautifully executed.