Somersault is a female coming of age drama. Of course in the cinema no-one comes of age like people in real life. For us it was a few weekends hanging around phoneboxes with three litres of MAX cider and then a fumble at a mates party. In the cinema coming of age always comes with a price. Here the price is sexual assault, ostracism, homelessness and… you get the idea. Its nothing we haven’t seen before except, well its all rather nice (even considering what is said above).
Somersault as a film plays on the audience expectation of tragedy. Bad stuff happens relentlessly to the lead for the first twenty minutes of the film, and then she finds her feet. She manages to survive. She occasionally almost seems happy.
As an audience we are just waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under her. Is this cruelty of some sort of Pavlovian reaction, something we are used to? It is drama after all, stuff has to happen. Well stuff happens in Somersault, but it is not the stuff you expect to happen. Which is why Somersault is good. It does not however even explain why the film is called Somersault. Which is, also apposite for the film, and also good.