THIS debut feature from Sydney-based director Paul Middleditch takes a sympathetic look at mental problems, its causes and implications. Ruth Maeve, an apparently well-to-do single mother, is on the run. Her parents want to put her in a mental institution and take custody of her little girl, Tuesday. But for Ruth, a woman who suffers painful flashbacks and "hears voices" (a neurosis apparently brought on by her despotic parents), Tuesday is her "everything". She won't give her up. Maybe she should. When she moves into a run-down doss house, Terra Nova, in which live the mentally infirm, junkies and an aggressive skinhead, you begin to fear for her and the child's future.

Mental illness is not easy to convey on celluloid. Middleditch's use of haunting flashbacks in slow-mo Super-8 (the format used in many old home movies) with added echoey voices is effective at first, but for a familiar technique it is overused here. Cinematically, we've been here before too many times before.

Where the film does work nicely is in the depiction of the developing relationships between the psyhologically-fragile members of the household. The scenes between the various lodgers are nicely paced and cast warmth and light on the shadowy fringes of society. In particular, Jeanette Cronin as Ruth is a versatile performer, playing the harried neurotic and the doting, ebullient mother with equal conviction. The ending leaves some questions unanswered, but Ruth's story resolves itself neatly.