Not Another Dying Girl: How Shannon Murphy's 'Babyteeth' Challenges a Weary Trope

The big screen is no stranger to storylines that wrench emotion by portraying an untimely, poignant death – often that of a young woman, often martyrised for the benefit of other characters. But Shannon Murphy's debut feature doesn't simply adhere to the formulas of the terminal-illness movie and related cinematic forms, instead opting to subvert and, ultimately, transcend them, writes Jessica Kiang.

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Eliza Scanlen, Essie Davis, Ben Mendelsohn, Toby Wallace, Rita Kalnejais, Little Women, The Fault in Our Stars, Love Story, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, storification, Brechtian techniques