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Black Balloon Details

2008 Certificate 15
  • Rated:
  • 70
  • from 1726 members

Life with an autistic brother is tough for Thomas when all he wants is to be a normal teenager. His girlfriend Jackie tries to help Thomas, but he has to take a long hard look at himself in order to accept his brother. Read more

Starring Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Toni Collette, Erik Thomson
Director Elissa Down
Genres Drama

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Black Balloon

Life with an autistic brother is tough for Thomas when all he wants is to be a normal teenager. His girlfriend Jackie tries to help Thomas, but he has to take a long hard look at himself in order to accept his brother.

Starring Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Toni Collette, Erik Thomson, Gemma Ward, Lloyd Allison-Young, Nathin Butler, Lisa Kowalski, Firass Dirani, Aaron Glennane, Andy Meritakis, Henry Nixon, Sally Evans, Kate Box, Ryan Clark, Sofia Fedirchuk
Director Elissa Down
Studio ICON HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time DVD: 1 hr 37 mins
Certificate Certificate 15
Genres Drama
Language DVD: English
Released DVD: 02 Feb 2009
Production year: 2008
Format DVD
  • Critics' reviews of Black Balloon

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  • 4 stars out of

    Presumably because there are too many actual black sheep in Australia for the term to mean anything, this movie focuses... read more on Time Out

    • Anna King, 
    • Time Out
  • Most helpful member's review of Black Balloon

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  • 29 out of 30 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 4 stars

    Enjoyably unexpected

    This only had 23 votes at my time of renting and (obviously) no review, so I thought I'd give it a chance, and am glad that I did.

    The story opens and builds the main characters at a good pace, getting a good feel of the emotions that the family have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

    There are a few points where this Australian movie throws up small, sublty unexpected events, and times where it doesn't follow what you'd predict from bigger, American productions. This keeps it feeling fresh and different without being pretentious, a good quality to have in a movie, in my opinion.

    I can't say I was hugely blown away by the movie but I'm certainly glad I watched, as it stirs the emotions nicely and doesn't feel like it repeats what others have done before.

    All in all it's just a good film, well acted, shot and edited.

      • A customer from Swindon, England
  • Most recent members' review of Black Balloon

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  • 4 out of 4 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 3 stars [Highly rated reviewer]

    Fab Film

    Australian cinema has a history of producing these human interest tales and this sits comfortably with the best of them. The, shall we say, straight forwardness of the Australian national stereotype can be a little tedious, even boorish but it seems to be underpinned by genuine common decency. It's a tale of good people doing the best they can in trying circumstances. The script is great, actors first class and It's also very entertaining which is quite a high wire act given the material.

    It would have got five stars but for an ending that was so stupid, so unnecessary that it actually made feel angry. It was as if the makers panicked and resorted to a HAPPY ending. It could have ruined the whole experience but as the ending isn't integeral it didn't. It was like finding a hair in your dinner but then realising it was one of your own

      • iamthelaw from Sale
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Rating breakdown

1,726 Member ratings
  • 100
151
  • 90
99
  • 80
447
  • 70
397
  • 60
329
  • 50
117
  • 40
105
  • 30
20
  • 20
42
  • 10
19

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    • Life with an autistic brother is tough for Thomas when all he wants is to be a normal teenager. His girlfriend Jackie tries to help Thomas, but he has to take a long hard look at himself in order to ...