Before expressing my opinion, I must say that (while I have no personal involvement in the film project) being a school teacher, who’s gay, and who grew up and lives in the area in which this film is set - I strongly identify with it.”50 Ways of Saying Fabulous” has a strong ring of authenticity to it. This may not translate well to the world outside Central Otago, New Zealand - but for a local there’s a lot to recognise. A ‘coming of age’ film it is, but it is also a lot more. It’s a brave telling of the true childhood stories that we tend not to allow to see the light of adulthood.The actors achieve the perfect balance between the paradoxical naivety and knowingness characteristic of the early teenage years. They inspired me with the bravery of their (sometimes misguided) idealism and the story leads them to expose, through their inevitable frustrations, a lot of the senselessness of the restrictions of our narrow society. I loved the relative absence of developed adult roles. The children were not only the main protagonists, but with the unwavering focus on their story: their view became ours - no translation required. Those who would criticise the ‘cheesy low budget space-show’ scenes woven throughout the film must surely have forgotten the fantasies of their own childhood, or perhaps they never needed to resort to fantasy to escape an all-too-restrictive daily reality. These sequences really were very funny in all of their overt symbolism.The bravery and incredible sincerity of the outcast character “Roy” (played with unwavering emotional and physical conviction by Jay Collins) struck a chord with me. The tragedy of his determination was almost too much to bear.I found the shifting of accent for the character “Jamie” (played by Michael Dorman) a little jarring. Somehow “South Auckland Polynesian, circa 2005″ segued into “Aussie Battler” a few too many times for me to suspend disbelief.The filming, in the stunning wilds of Central Otago, captured the vast emptiness of the place beautifully. The characters owned the terrain, there was nothing else there. The intense colour saturation reinforced the historical nature of the film (It was set in the 70’s). The drought, and the constant threat of fire, added beautifully to the undertone of tension. Something might go wrong.Stories like this need to be told over and over in all their variety and colour. I loved sitting in our local cinema surrounded by teenagers from the school at which I teach and seeing them enjoying and responding to the message to “be themselves”. New Zealand is perhaps coming of age too, to see a feature film of this nature to fruition.Anyone with a curiosity for the culture of this isolated southern island would do well to catch this film. It adds a new chapter to the story of where we come from as told in the likes of “The Piano”, “Heavenly Creatures” and “Once Were Warriors”.