A curious film with bursts of illustration from Australian director and animator Sarah Watt. Elspeth Waters dives in.

For all its distracting bursts of extraordinary illustration, at the heart of Look Both Ways is a wonderfully commonplace theme: the ebb and flow of life and the chance events that bring people together. In traditional Romcom style, Meryl (Justine Clark) and Nick (William McInnes) meet, encounter some obstacles and then the forces that be collide to set them back on track to lovesville. In this case, however, death is the principal obstacle and it manifests itself in all that they see and do. Nick has just discovered he might be dying, Meryl is grieving and it is the death of a total stranger, which brings them together in the first place and weaves the other characters into the frame.

This – animator Sarah Watt’s first foray into the world of features – is a curious film. On the one hand it has that brilliant, almost parochial, amateurishness so in keeping with Australian suburbia. Encounters and exchanges are often brief but much is conveyed in each scene, especially in the wonderfully vivid, yet vacant expressions, of the two leads. And the dullness of the backdrop only serves to make the characters’ brilliance shine. Even the more minor personae make their mark and leave a poignantly lasting impression, be it of sympathy or discomfort, or both.

But the symbolism is jarringly blatant at times. The frenzied pace of life as it all-too- quickly hurtles towards untimely death is pointedly communicated by the freight train and the rolling presses, as well as the characters’ sudden urges to run and sporadic photo sequences played at superspeed. Meanwhile, the periodic return to images of birds taking flight seems to be a reminder of the conversely natural unfolding of life into death, happening all around. Most clichéd of all, however, is the ultimate downpour that provokes a widespread purging of emotions, mingling with the tears of all, before allowing relief and resolution.

These qualms aside, once you adjust to the staccato episodes of surreal activity, Look Both Ways makes for a thoroughly enjoyable escape. Clark is utterly delightful as the quietly stoic Meryl scraping by on what she gets for illustrating tacky greetings cards, while her creativity is unleashed in fabulous murals and extraordinarily potent visions. Likewise, McInnes captures Nick’s fateful predicament – the journey from his own questionable mortality back to the drawn out death of his father – with admirable strength and appropriate bewilderment. The couple’s passive reluctance, while frustrating, is wholly understandable, and the ending, although predictable, somehow avoids the saccharine taste left by most romantic denouements. Beyond the quirks, Watt’s debut is by turns heartbreaking and effortlessly funny: the perfect fodder for a rainy Sunday.

Look Both Ways is in cinemas now.