Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie’s Dead Aunt) Movie Storyline. Seventeen year old Ellie (Sophie Hawkshaw) comes out to her mother in a very blunt manner, and her mother is stunned by her daughters out and proud attitude. Ellie wants to ask her classmate Abbie (Zoe Terakes) to the formal, but is reluctant and nervous about doing so. On her journey of summoning the courage to ask Abbie out, or in the alternative, being rejected, she gets advice from her living Aunt Patty, and is also being advised by her deceased Aunt Tara, a LGBT rights activist who died in the 1980s. Aunt Tara doesn’t want to be called a ghost though, but rather a ‘fairy’ godmother.
Ellie and Abbie (And Ellie’s Dead Aunt) is a 2020 Australian LGBT romance comedy film written and directed by Monica Zanetti, in her feature directorial debut. It is based on her own 2016 stage play. The film stars Sophie Hawkshaw, Zoe Terakes, Marta Dusseldorp, Rachel House, Julia Billington and Bridie Connell. It also won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film at the festival. The film went on to screenings at several other film festivals, and had a limited theatrical release on August 27, 2021 in the United States. It grossed $4,547 in its opening weekend. The films worldwide gross at the box office was only $19,940.
The film had its world premiere on 13 February 2020 as the first Australian feature to open the Mardi Gras Film Festival in its 27-year history. It had a screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2020, three additional screenings in October at the Brisbane Queer Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival and the Reel Affirmations.
Film Review for Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie’s Dead Aunt)
Had it been made a decade or two ago, it’s easy to imagine Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie’s Dead Aunt) (★★★★☆) probably would have been a very different film. This is not lost on writer and director Monica Zanetti, whose sense of the past and present realities of what it means to be young and gay is apparent throughout. The film revolves around high-schooler Ellie (Sophie Hawkshaw) who has a crush on her friend and classmate Abbie (Zoe Terakes) and must summon the courage to both come out to her mother and ask Abbie to the school formal. Luckily for Ellie, the ghost of her dead lesbian aunt Tara (Julia Billington) shows up to dispense sage advice. Tara is quick to take exception to the label of “ghost,” stating that she prefers to be thought of as a fairy godmother, which becomes one of many recurring gags delivered skillfully by the instantly likeable Billington.
There’s plenty of humor in Tara’s well-meaning cluelessness running up against Ellie’s adolescent impetuousness, but some heavier subject matter disrupts the lightheartedness of the low-stakes drama of Ellie’s crush on Abbie. Revelations about Tara cause Ellie to see her in a new light and shake both her own confidence and her friendship with Abbie.
Despite Ellie’s very real and legitimate struggles, the film keeps its focus broad and remains mindful of the long arc of what it means and has meant to be gay. Although played for laughs, Ellie’s intergenerational relationship with an older (albeit dead) gay family member becomes a lens for exploring the struggles that were necessary to get society to a place where it is taken for granted that Ellie can ask a girl to the prom.
Even when the film brings up the past it never comes off as particularly preachy, and neither is it dismissive of the issues still faced by young queer people. It starts from the baseline assumption that — in modern, suburban Australia at least — someone like Ellie is unlikely to face much outright vitriol for coming out, and her biggest fear in asking Abbie to the formal is the near-universal fear of rejection. But starting from this assumption allows the film to explore more subtle shades of homophobia and shed light on the struggles that still exist.
Heartfelt performances from a mostly-LGBTQ cast lend the film a sense of immediacy and warmth. The real key to the film’s success, however, is director Zanetti’s compassion and empathy, which allow her to deliver a film that is light-hearted without being dismissive, and poignant without being preachy. In Ellie & Abbie, she skillfully weaves together comedy and drama to tell a beautiful, affirming story of young love.
Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie’s Dead Aunt) (2021)
Directed by: Monica Zanetti
Starring: Sophie Hawkshaw, Zoe Terakes, Marta Dusseldorp, Rachel House, Julia Billington, Bridie Connell, Randall Hua, Chiara Gizzi, Olga Markovic, Orya Golgowsky, Lauren Johnson, Melanie Bowers
Screenplay by: Monica Zanetti
Production Design by: Jamie Cranney
Cinematography by: Calum Stewart
Film Editing by: Nicole Thorn
Costume Design by: Elizabeth Franklin
Makeup Department: Tania Strange
Music by: David Chapman
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Arcadia, Gravitas Ventures
Release Date: August 27, 2021 (United States)
Visits: 43
