The Year My Voice Broke (1987) on Netflix
In 1962 rural New South Wales, Danny Embling and Freya Olsen are best friends. Freya falls for Trevor Leishman, a rugby star and petty criminal, and Danny has grown feelings for her.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.3/102,463 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
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Plot summary
Danny Embling is a thin, awkward 15-year-old in a country town in New South Wales in 1962. His closest friend since childhood is Freya Olsen, who was adopted, and the town still speculates about who her birth parents might be. The pair spend their time at a spot on the edge of town where they experiment with telepathy and hypnosis. Danny's feelings for Freya have deepened, but she is drawn to Trevor Leishman, a rugby league star at the school who is also a petty criminal. Trevor keeps the school bullies off Danny, and Danny, unwillingly, becomes his friend. Together with Trevor, they find an abandoned house said to be haunted.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Year My Voice Broke (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Year My Voice Broke was entered in the AFI Awards despite protests that it was a telemovie; it was allowed in because John Duigan argued it was shot in 35 mm and designed as a feature. It won five AFI Awards, which led Hoyts to pick it up and release it theatrically.
- John Duigan wrote a script based on his time at a boarding school in the mid-1960s, but could not get it funded, so he wrote the prequel The Year My Voice Broke, about the leading character growing up in a country town.
- The film's main theme is "The Lark Ascending" by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams; at a 2005 screening in Sydney, John Duigan said he chose the piece because it complemented Danny's adolescent yearning.
- All of the film's source songs are true to its 1962 setting except "That's the Way Boys Are", which was not released until 1964.
