Somersault

Lost, lonely, longing 16-year-old sexpot or irritating indie-movie crazy girl? In Somersault, a big prizewinner in writer-director Cate Shortland’s native Australia, Heidi (Abbie Cornish) is both. She runs away from home after getting caught fooling around with her mother’s boyfriend, takes a bus to a ski resort on the road to nowhere, and proceeds to seek out other wrong men in other beds, sorting out the differences between love and sexual desire as she tumbles. The character can be a dolt, but Cornish is a marvel, exuding a reckless hunger and prowling with a sexuality of potent directness.