
Some of the material’s stage origins are evident in the screenplay’s barbed confrontations, its carefully modulated verbal tension and the confinement of much of the drama to the Finlays’ comfortable suburban home. That’s the general outline of the story, directed by Australian filmmaker Shannon Murphy and adapted by Rita Kalnejais from her own play.

Her mother, Anna (Davis), and father, Henry (Mendelsohn), look on with a kind of dumbfounded helplessness: If this creep really is the fulfillment of their smart, sensitive daughter’s dying wish, who are they to argue? Moses has a rat-tail, strung-out eyes and a tattoo on his cheek that might as well read “bad news” Milla, instantly smitten, brings him home to dinner. He apologizes and tries to staunch her nosebleed, then asks if she has any money.

Milla is waiting for a train, closing her eyes and perhaps contemplating a leap onto the tracks, when Moses (Wallace), a flailing raw nerve on long, skinny legs, sideswipes her on the platform. There is no fault in these terrific stars, or in Toby Wallace’s arresting performance as the 23-year-old drug addict who crashes into Milla’s life, upending moments that might be her last.
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Eliza Scanlen plays Milla Finlay, a 15-year-old who’s been diagnosed with cancer, and Essie Davis and Ben Mendelsohn are her parents, who respond to their daughter’s steady decline with varying degrees of panic, rage and resignation.
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“Babyteeth,” a drama of unruly intelligence and churning emotional force, brings a jolt of unpredictability to a type of movie usually known for its grim, maudlin excess: the coming-of-age, coming-of-death story.
