FREEWAY II: CONFESSIONS OF A TRICKBABY

Named after her mom’s favourite drug, Crystal is better known as White Girl, a bulimic career criminal who’s spent her adolescent years robbing “tricks”. Awaiting transport to jail to serve a 25-year sentence, she meets Cyclona, a psychotic young lesbian about to do a life sentence for murder. Ignoring Cyclona’s lustful advances, the two manage to escape and find themselves on the run. There’s no turning back for White Girl, when she finds out that Cyclona’s a serial killer who slaughtered her entire family and who follows hallucinatory visions of Sister Gomez, the only image of truth and strength from a spectacularly brutal childhood. She has to keep feeding Cyclona those anti-psychotic drugs, continue the hell-bent road trip to Mexico and cross the border, leaving behind a trail of murder fuelled by drugs, alcohol and demonic voices. After the cult success of Freeway (presented at the 15th Festival), director Matthew Bright rips up another age-old Brothers Grimm tale, reinventing it as Gretel and Gretel, who leave a trail of crack crumbs through the dark American forest on their way to the witch’s house of candy in Mexico. Bright never forgets the imagery and nature of the source material as he turns the bedtime story into a rollicking comedy of excess. Natasha Lyonne (Everyone Says I Love You, American Pie) spits foul-mouthed fire into a delightful performance as White Girl, while Vincent Gallo (Buffalo ‘66, Goodfellas), will make your jaw drop as the wicked witch Sister Gomez.