If you're lucky, the "Oh, dear" moment in a below average film arrives late - perhaps when a warring couple are inexplicably married to satisfy a test audience's need for a happy ending. All too often, though, it arrives early, signalling that 100 miserable minutes lie ahead. The new Aussie flick Hey, Hey It's Esther Blueburger is disappointingly one of the latter whose "Oh, dear" moment arrives during the opening credits. Aimed at fans of Looking for Alibrandi, this coming-of-age cultural comedy is distinguished by its lack of truth, and lack of humour.

The titular Esther (newcomer Danielle Catanzariti) is a young Jewish girl bullied by the blue-bloods at her waspish private school. She lives in a world of domineering routine - at school and at home - where braces, religion and a nerdy brother separate her from the pack. Then she meets Sunni (Keisha Castle-Hughes), a tough kid from the local state school. Attracted by her outsider status, Esther borrows a uniform and starts a covert life at public school under the unlikely protection of Sunni's free-spirited single mum (Toni Collette). Hi-jinks lead, not surprisingly, to life-affirming tragedy.

The singular problem with Hey, Hey It's Esther Blueburger is credibility. Little, if any, of these happenings occur with anything approaching authenticity. Situation, dialogue and response are burdened by cliche after clich, as they are trotted out in a witless attempt to keep the increasingly illogical story afloat. No matter the best intentions of writer/director Cathy Randall or her cast of Academy Award nominees, there's little that rings true, and nothing that would save Hey, Hey It's Esther Blueburger from a rich critical mauling if this were a Californian import. Oh dear, oh dear.