Love and Other Catastrophes is a breezy and free-spirited Australian comedy written and directed by 24-year-old Emma-Kate Croghan. It conveys a day in the fragmented lives of five college students who are trying to fit together the scrambled puzzle of their mutual existence.
Film students Mia (Frances O'Conner) and her roommate Alice (Alice Garner) need another housemate for their new warehouse apartment. Everything goes bad for Mia when she runs up against the campus bureaucracy while trying to pay a large library fine and attempting to switch majors. In addition, her lover Danni (Radha Mitchell) has left her for another woman (Suzi Dougherty).
Meanwhile Alice is feeling the need to find her soulmate who she believes will be honest, left-handed, and in love with Calamity Jane, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Meet Me in St. Louis. She falls for Ari (Matthew Dyktynski), a womanizing classics major, but eventually is dazzled by Michael (Matt Day), a medical student who is looking for a new place to stay.
First time director Croghan displays a knack for catching on camera the chaos of cmapus life where students are throttled by intellectual pursuits, erotic desires, and swiftly changing moods. The winsome young cast works well in this amiable comedy.