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Thandiwe is as headstrong and brash as Danny, inviting herself up to his room at one point, and as an audience, we yearn for them to be together. When the real world intrudes and forces them both to mature, threatening to make their time together brief, Duigan finds the right emotional notes to carry their story through to the end. As a writer-director, his career hits its commercial and critical strides in the mid 1990s with this, his adaptation of the Jane Eyre prequel Wide Sargasso Sea, and Sirens in quick succession and only seven films since then. Having seen so very few of his early films and not caring for much of what he helmed post-Sirens, I find it hard to judge if the Danny Embling films were anomalies in his career, life experiences that needed to be played out for closure, and the extremely quirky nature of his other projects (Lawn Dogs, The Leading Man, Molly) were more in line with his taste.

The DVD cover art for Flirting features third-billed Nicole Kidman front and center with a Photoshopped Thandie on the left "gazing" across at her and it's easy to imagine the folks at MGM taking the easy road for a few more rentals with the suggestion of lesbian trysting. If you're curious, there's none to be had here, folks, and frankly, although I can't believe I am saying this, Flirting is all the better for it. As baits and switch go, it's hardly the biggest swindler. That would be the video box for the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion (alternate viewing choice #6) which implied that this would be the bodice-ripperiest of all costume dramas and that the titular activity would be taking place (loudly) behind locked doors and not discreetly out in the open air of drawing rooms and parlors.

Kidman is a perfect supporting foil as Nicola, haughty and icy but not as chilly as she would like to let on. Nicola winds up being a confidant of sorts for Thandiwe and their scenes together are yet further examples of Duigan's unwillingness to let stereotypes and assumptions dictate the direction of his story. On a final note, look sharp for a young Naomi Watts, making her feature film debut here as well and reflect that it would be another ten years on before she would get her own breakout role.

Next time: One of the producers of both The Year My Voice Broke and Flirting is an Australian filmmaker who has helmed everything from post-apocalyptic action classics to disarming family tales. He has directed two (soon to be three) Chapter Twos and I'll be heading back to 1998 to take a look at one of them.

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