Seeing the Australian premiere of Paloma Schneideman’s first feature film meant the audience was keyed up for a good time, laughing at every joke.

I’m sure I won’t be the first to liken this to a queer Puberty Blues (the nostalgic age of my adolesence), it inhabits the same awkward period of teenagerhood where you are trying to navigate your own desire and how that fits into other people‘s expectations.

Sid (a remarkably good Ani Palmer in their first role) is 14, and has stirring feelings of desire towards other girls. It’s not what is expected though, and so she embarks on a slippery slope of lying and pretending and trying to impress the cool girls. We are very comfortable with these tropes, we will try to be friends with people who aren’t worth it and in doing so, lose the people who actually matter.

For Sid, this includes her long suffering friend Tia (Ngataitangirua Hita) but not her dad. He is the epitome of neglectful and a key aspect of Sid’s experience is the amount of neglect and disconnection she lives with. Her dad is played by Noah Taylor and we all know that he is a dab hand at playing someone who’s moral compass is askew.

The strength of this film is in the authenticity of Palmer‘s performance and the feeling of being immersed in an adolescence that many of us will probably remember. This one is set in 2006, a rather specific date but significant in that it is on the brink of the explosion of social media and connection to both people and information. Sid uses one of those push button mobile phones and is limited by credit, do you remember those days? It is the days of MSN and easily guessed passwords.

There is no way for Sid to find out that the feeling she is having for other women is normal, and of course she is too afraid to admit it to any of her mostly vapid friends.

There are two blonde girls who are the objects of Sid’s affections – mean girl Lara (Beatrix Rain Wolfe) and exchange student Freya (Rain Spencer). I’m not sure if we were supposed to mix them up or if it was just my blonde haired white girl blindness. I worked it out eventually.

Sid is not really a great person, although I think we can empathise with times in our lives when we have made bad decisions and treated the people who love us badly. Palmer makes her very sympathetic, and I think because we are with her throughout, we see the real girl behind the facade.

I was hoping for more of a narrative payoff by the end, but really we are seeing a vignette and must draw our own conclusions about Sid’s future chances.