
Newcastle is a coming of age film revolving around surfers in Newcastle, Australia. It’s entertaining and it gets the job done, but it’s also fairly typical of the genre. People are estranged, families are dysfunctional, tragedy strikes, life lessons are learned; oh, and teenagers lose their virginity (you know, “in everyone’s life, there’s a ‘Summer of ‘42’”?). The screenplay by Dan Castle, who also directed, could benefit from a more focused through line; it changes horses in midstream with the first two thirds being a character study of a dysfunctional family, the last third becoming one of those films where someone, somehow finds the courage to go on. Because of this, the tragedy that occurs doesn’t seem to grow organically out of the story, but seems pasted on in order to find a way to end the story. I’m being snarky, I know. It’s more enjoyable that I’m letting on. And there’s a lot of rear nudity (though no frontal—there is something a bit prudish about it at the end of the day), which can’t be all bad.