River is an achingly authentic Australian coming-of-age story

Like the rushing body of water that lends River (Mia Barrett) her name – and Zane Borg’s lilting film its title – life goes streaming on.

There are plates of pasta for dinner with her dad (Sal Galofaro), and giggles about crushes with her best friends, Lily (Shabana Azeez) and Sam (Luca Sardelis). Two boys hover – the brooding Marcus (William McKenna) and goofy ray of sunshine Radley (Dylan Laguerre).

But she’s just going through the motions. River’s mum is dead and the void inside is a great, gaping chasm.

Standing alone

Premiering at the Adelaide Film Festival, River is a portrait of loss and the lasting impact it has on a young person unprepared to reckon with the immensity of mortality. Drawing on personal experience, Borg’s accomplished sophomore feature aches with lived authenticity, trusting us to swim in its turbulent eddies that swirl just below a calm surface.

Barrett’s performance is remarkable, eschewing flashy melodrama in favour of sitting in the silence of a broken heart. It’s a brilliantly subtle turn. River’s well-meaning but emotionally unavailable dad, struggling with the weight of his own anguish, can only muster inane questions about her school day.

We feel River’s desperate need for him to step up. Instead, he leaves her home alone for three weeks.

Lily and Sam swing in, flocking to their best mate’s side with an abundance of love. River lights up in their presence, with The Pitt and The Airport Chaplain star particularly puckish. A scene in which they workshop a response to an uncalled-for dick pic, responding with a close-up of a knee bend pretending to be something else entirely brings chaos goblin chuckles.

But there’s only so far that distraction tactics can carry you. Sometimes you must sit in the pain, and often that’s a journey we have to walk ourselves. When Sam asks one too many personal questions about River’s mother while they share a bath, her grieving mate pushes her away emotionally.

Bad boyfriend

Things are different with Marcus. While he’s far from a good ‘boyfriend’, actively resisting that label after a perfunctory hook-up on the dirty concrete of a highway underpass, the taciturn lad offers River an understanding she can’t find elsewhere.

He’s lost his mother, too, and while their circumstances are very different, River can drop her ‘it’s fine’ shield with him. But while their shared agony is a safe space, the walls of this sanctuary are crumbling.

Angry at the world, Marcus lashes out. He’s all bruised eyes, scuffs and scratches, some gifted by his frozen-in-amber-ale father. Played by Mr Inbetween star Justin Rosniak in a small but impactful cameo, he’s a wounded man similarly unable to give his son what he needs – and that failure is writ large across Marcus’ stormy countenance.

While the Goosebumps-loving Radley, a good boy happy to try on make-up with the girls, offers more stability, a birthday party dalliance with River only serves to shatter Marcus’ nonchalance, begetting more violence. Laguerre imbues this role with such warmth, and his loss is keenly felt when he’s quietly dropped from the plot.

Borg’s screenplay doesn’t feel the need to join all the dots. Rumours circling around River and Marcus – that she’s a ‘slut’ and he stole a car – suggest that both have experienced bullying, but this is a world told beyond the school gates.

This subtle nod tips us into a Act Three road trip, as the pair hunt for some kind of peace. But again, this is a route River must travel alone.

A roiling sea

The film is bookended by two slow, circling scenes that edge gently around a support group for grieving people. In the first, she listens as someone else unburdens themselves.

By the time we come back to this bond of sorrow, River can finally step into her truth, and we collectively heave a sigh of relief at the hard-earned release, anchored by an outstanding Barrett.

Tenderly lensed by cinematographer Nyssa Mitchell, who brings an eye for arrested intimacy, and given an ethereal score of sore beauty by Marlon Grunden, River is a roiling sea.

Deftly edited by Borg and Liam Kelly, we bob and toss in its heady currents, as River spills its sorrow into the sea. In a delicately drawn Australian film of great depth, Borg and Barrett leave us with hope that River has the tools she needs to survive this trial, and maybe even thrive.

A testament to self-healing, River is a soothing balm anyone who has ever lost someone will find themselves floating in, a baptism of love.

River premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival. An Australian release date has yet to be announced.

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