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Clip description
Esther Blueburger (Danielle Catanzariti) is now attending Sunni’s (Keisha Castle-Hughes) school. The freedom she has there is very different to the regimented nature of her old private school. Sunni shows her around, giving the audience a visual run-through of the various cliques in existence within the public school grounds: from the computer nerds to the pony club crowd, from the emos to the bible bashers. ‘You can hang with us while you decide who you want to be,’ says Sunni when she introduces Esther to her closest group of friends.
Curator’s notes
This is one of the film’s most amusing sequences and it adds greatly to the audience’s understanding of Sunni’s personality. Her interaction with the highly intelligent computer nerd demonstrates her high regard for difference, for example, and her attitude to all the groups indicates her acceptance of everyone. Generally, Sunni’s behaviour while she shows Esther around indicates how comfortable Sunni is with herself and her place in the world, and this is further demonstrated in the way she encourages Esther to be whoever she wants to be, rather than responding to others’ expectations of her. Under Sunni’s influence, Esther is acquiring a new self-confidence but is also learning that the pressure to conform is unavoidable and that it can be very tempting to do the wrong thing in order to be cool. The sequence also demonstrates the soundtrack’s contribution to the film’s energy.
