This is a remarkable film that will light a fire in the coolest heart. Melbourne movie makers Nadia Tass and David Parker have created another emotional masterpiece, as touching in its own way as their earlier films, Malcom and The Big Steal.

Amy is an eight year old child rendered deaf and dumb after witnessing the electric shock death on stage during a rainstorm of her rock star father (Nick Barker).

We meet Amy (Alana De Roma) in the bush, living with her mum (Rachel Griffiths) and her Spanish grandfather, and being harrassed by Community Service because she is not at school. They escape to a single-fronted dump in a Melbourne industrial suburb peopled by a brunch of average Australian crazies.

Across the street, Ben Mendelsohn sits on his verandah, plays his compositions and becomes increasingly intrigued by his little neighbour who sees, but can not - or will not - communicate.

Gradually, he draws out Amy and discovers, by accident, she can not communicate by singing (appartently a known medical condition). All the while, Griffiths, frustrated by her inability to communicate with her daughter, is angrily confronting social workers and psychologists who want to send her child away to a special school.

The last thing she needs is some smart aleck muso musceling in as a headshrink. Yet, as she and Amy become involved in the lives of the muso and the other people in the street, she and her child's reserve begin to melt - until one dark and stormy night when Amy goes missing..........

Does the plot sound as inviting as an open vein?

Nonsense. This film is a film that grabs you by the heart while choking up your throat. It does it in many ways. The characters are as real as real as the neighbours over your back fence and as darned cranky.

What is more, they are coated with flesh and blood by the sort of performances that actors deliver when given a script that says something and a director who knows how to make them laugh and cry. Griffiths is haunted as the stretched widow, stressed out by the grief she has yet to come to terms with and a fear of facing fresh emotional entanglements whether her daughter's or her own. Mendolsohn drops his cut and quirky act and plays it as strakly straight as his weatherboards, a natural foil for his strung-out neighbours.

Then there is little Alana De Roma as Amy. Forget Anna Pacquin, the sulky child in The Piano; Alana is a ravenringleted Shirley Temple with the emotional range of a Meryl Streep. She even sings like an angel as her version of 'Ain't No Sunshine' will prove.

This sort of talent in a kid so young verges on the scary. In fact, the soundtrack by Nick Barker (who makes a convincing rock star dad) is a bonus, along, with the flashes of humor that prevent the film taking itself too seriously.

**** HEARTBREAKER

Amy Enker (newcomer De Roma) is only 8 years old but her life has already been split in two.

For her first four years, as the little princess daughter of rock star Will (Nick Barker) and his spirited wife, Tanya (Griffiths), she revelled in high times. But when her father is electrocuted on stage, Amy escapes into guiltstricken silence.

Hounded by child-welfare workers, she and Tanya flee to inner Melbourne, where unlovely houses teem with humanity.

There, inspired by the non-stop crooning of reticent songwriter Robert (Mendolshon), Amy makes her first sound in four years, hesitantly singing in response.

It's her link to her father, her sole means of reaching out - and thanks to writer, producer and cinematographer David Parker and his wife, director Nadia Tass - it sets the stage for some roundly gonzo moments.

The sight of uniformed coppers warbling en masse as they search for the missing sprog is something no-one is likely to forget, but such moments of light relief only underscore the crippling trauma of loss.

Griffiths, Mendelsohn and their gem of a leading lady walk a potentially maudlin line with mercifully understated empathy. Their journey is a rare gift: instantly involving and beautifully crafted with the deft mix of larrikinsi, stoicism, tragedy and tenderness of Australians at their best.

The latest offering from the team of Nadia Tass and David Parker succeeds against the odds and succeeds wonderfully.

Since the death of her musician father (Nick Barker), young Amy (Alana De Roma) has been unable to communicate. Her mother Tanya (Rachel Griffiths) is too angry to be depressed by her lot, which includes trouble with finances and the welfare authorities. So when two welfare officials come to her rural abode to check on Amy, Tanya promptly packs up and leaves for a quiet cottage tucked into the corner of an inner city laneway.

Among the amusing array of neighbors is a musician (Ben Mendelsohn) who accidentally discovers Amy can communicate after all, but only through song. So whenever anyone needs to speak to her, they must sing. This is a premise that could easily have gone way off the rails into the realm of deep embarrassment...

Fortunately however, Amy does what too few films do these days which is to create its own magic on screen. For amoung the dark streets, low level street crime and social realist veneer of Amy is a thread of magic. Wisely it is never overplayed or sentimentalised, but there is just enough to bring out the themes of love, innocence and misplaced guilt.

Likely to be one of the most charming films of the year, Amy is closest in spirit to Malcolm, a sad, often funny and ultimately uplifting urban fairytale. The only worm in the apple is how such a bona fide children's film ended up with an 'M' rating. Although the poster quotes "low level coarse language" and "adult themes", it's hard to see what qualified it for an 'M' when Jurassic Park, The Lost World, with all its blood, fury and tearing apart of people got a 'PG'.

Go Figure.

"An OUTSTANDING movie. It is through the meticulous crafted deft manoeuvring between commedy and tragedy that AMY draws its strength".

"AMY" IS A MUST SEE MOVIE".
Parker's story and Tass's direction are packed with good humour. This is one of the Tass-Parker team's best.
Rating 8/10

"Idiosyncratic charm..."

"Tass confidently spins her emotive web...she observes the human condition, picks at its' warts, carresses its' bumps and eventually turns it into an enduring experience as smooth as a baby's bottom".

"Audiences......are over the moon".