Last year at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, our curation team saw an Australian short about a broke, rebellious, and determined young woman hustling to get a morning-after pill. It stopped us in our tracks. The film, called “Slapper,” is a ticking-clock thriller counting down to possible pregnancy, set in the poor Australian outskirts of halfway houses, drug dens, delinquents, and dog thieves. At the center of the story is Taylah, the titular “Slapper” (Aussie slang for a promiscuous woman), who is failing to balance her sense of teenage freedom, invincibility, and privilege with the reality and responsibility of being a desperate young mother.
Director Luci Schroder wanted to capture a coming-of-age story about a thrill-seeking teen girl dealing with her own bodily autonomy. Schroder says she wanted the short to be “observational, off-hand, perverse, and set in an authentically rough Australian world. I wanted to see a bold teen girl who makes mistakes unapologetically before realizing her responsibilities.”
From the opening scene depicting unprotected sex, the energy and graphic anarchy of “Slapper” is apparent and the comedy of errors begins. There’s a constant tension in the film — literally and philosophically. Taylah may have autonomy and be in control of her decisions, whether they be brash or logical, but she’s also a victim of circumstance. She’s dependent on no man, yet she’s clearly not functioning well with independence. She’s a living contradiction. Taylah has two responsibilities today: babysit her daughter and get a morning-after pill to prevent a new one. It’s a fascinating conflict to see unfold and, at each turn, Schroder dashes our expectations. She replaces a traditional coming-of-age arc with that of a thriller and cloaks it in terrible decisions — sex, drugs, and violence — but its effect creates one of the most invigorating and frightening mother/daughter pairs I’ve seen on screen in years.
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