Movie review: ‘Babyteeth’ brings unique life, infectious energy to sickly teen subgenre

It’s high praise for Shannon Murphy’s “Babyteeth” that Australia’s two best actors (Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis) aren’t even the best thing about it (though they are certainly a warm and welcome presence).

Mendelsohn and Davis deliver particularly poignant performances, but there’s so much more to this film than the two titans because “Babyteeth” belongs to star Eliza Scanlen, who plays dying teenager Milla with an infectious effervescence. Making her feature directorial debut with a script by Rita Kalnejais, “Killing Eve” director Murphy renders the material into something surprising, creative and unique. This is a film about a sick teen who dares to be lyrical, colorful and even cheeky, striking a completely singular tone.

Much of that energy comes from co-star Toby Wallace, who plays Moses, a strangely appealing agent of chaos who gives Milla, Anna and Henry the jolt they need to sit up and pay attention to their lives. Sporting short running shorts, a baggy Hawaiian shirt and stick-and-poke face tattoos, this snub-nosed scamp encounters schoolgirl Milla on a train platform, and she’s instantly smitten, pulled into his orbit by the gravity of his sheer charisma.

Hoping to scam a few bucks or whatever he can, Moses tags along with Milla, but their chemistry is undeniable: It’s not just the score he’s looking for.

Staid psychiatrist Henry and loopy housewife Anna are predictably horrified when Milla, sporting a half-finished pixie cut he’d been trying to give her, brings this 20-something crust punk home to dinner. But they indulge her a bit, and the script soon reveals why. Milla’s mysterious nosebleeds are the external symptom of the cancer that’s killing her.

So while Henry and Anna don’t approve of Moses (especially when they find him breaking into their home later), they soften when they see how happy he makes their daughter. And in hopes of keeping a watchful eye on her, and preventing her from sneaking out for nights in the city at house parties, they let Moses into their lives.

If this sounds like just another sickly teen movie, it’s not. Milla’s cancer is a constant presence, but it’s not about the cancer. The sickness offers stakes; it explains why she’s so bold and constantly craving more and more experiences to cram into her young life, and why her parents succumb to her otherwise reckless whims (“This is the worst parenting,” Anna sighs, as she watches Milla and Moses wrestle on the lawn). However, “Babyteeth” isn’t so much about cancer and dying as it is about life in general and the conundrum of loving your family and wishing for their happiness as you strive for your own, but struggling to perform as the perfect wife, daughter or husband.

Perhaps that’s why Moses is just the right medicine. He is footloose and unabashedly himself. That carefree attitude has resulted in a life of crime, peddling prescription pills and an estrangement from his family. But Moses shakes things up in just the right way for Milla, sprinkling a tiny bit of hedonism, lust and danger to her world.

That’s why it’s a bit disappointing when the film tacks on a coda that double underlines the poignancy factor, making it more about death and dying when this is a film that’s otherwise so full of life. Murphy isn’t afraid to play with color, light, text and music or to let her characters dance like no one is watching, and often. That energy, embodied in the filmmaking and in the performances, is what puts this coming-of-age film into a class all its own.