CANBERRA-born former Doug Anthony All-Star Tim Ferguson makes his grown-up movie directing debut with this satire on that rural Australian social phenomenon, the Bachelors’ and Spinsters’ Ball, co-written with Edwina Exton.

This ball climaxes a day of boys and girls competing in souped-up utes for a trophy for the most spectacular and risky wheelies (although speeds are not high). Those sequences, artfully shot using drone-mounted cameras, soon become boring, despite the drivers’ undeniable skills.

The sun sinking in the west is the signal for the girls to put on frocks, some of the boys to put on dinner jackets and trophy-winner guarding the door big Mary (Melissa Bergland) to hand out free condoms. Here we really meet the characters and watch their behaviours at a stage in their lives when boozing and bonking are strong motivators, experiences about which they have undoubtedly heard but may not yet have mastered.

The shallow plot follows a bumpy romance between clean-cut Billy (Xavier Samuel) and pretty Lucy (Morgan Griffin). Sparrow (Travis Jeffery), Billy’s partner in the spin-out contest, is besotted with Mary.

In a youth not without nights of drinking, dancing and desire, the institution called B&S did not cross my path. I cannot tell how authentically ”Spin Out” depicts it. But the B&S clichés that Ferguson and Exton have dredged up quickly lose their freshness and attraction.

At Hoyts