Published 2017 on Down Under Flix
To some viewers, Australian comedies are a warm blanket providing comfort and joy. For some, they’re an acquired taste, the cinematic equivalent of Vegemite. For others, they’re only marginally preferable to arsenic, and for others still arsenic would be the preferred beverage of the two. Personally, I like local comedies just fine, though I’m not naturally predisposed towards them and have only seen the better known ones. In other words, I’ve seen The Castle, but not The Craic; I’ve watched The Wog Boy, but never Hercules Returns.
To some viewers, Australian comedies are a warm blanket providing comfort and joy. For some, they’re an acquired taste, the cinematic equivalent of Vegemite. For others, they’re only marginally preferable to arsenic, and for others still arsenic would be the preferred beverage of the two. Personally, I like local comedies just fine, though I’m not naturally predisposed towards them and have only seen the better known ones. In other words, I’ve seen The Castle, but not The Craic; I’ve watched The Wog Boy, but never Hercules Returns.
Throughout
February and March, Down Under Flix will shine a light on thirteen Australian
comedies, mostly from the 2000s. The noughties were a curious period for local
comedies, a decade that yielded some big successes – The Wog Boy, The Dish, Crackerjack, Kenny – but also many duds,
often from the very same creative teams. On first glance, there’s no holistic
identity uniting the comedies of that period. The major comedies of the 70s
– Alvin
Purple and The Adventures of Barry
McKenzie and Barry McKenzie Holds His Own – rejoiced in their newly forged opportunity to present
Australian identity on film (even when covertly attacking it, as per Barry
Humphries’ work) and embraced the sex and the sauce thanks to the liberal
attitudes and censorship of the time. The major comedies of the 80s – Crocodile Dundee and Young Einstein and Les Patterson Saves the World – commodified that Australian identity for a global
audience. And the major comedies of the 90s – Muriel’s Wedding and The Castle and The Adventures of
Priscilla: Queen of the Desert – gave voice to misfits and social outcasts: suburban
battlers and drag queens and plump downtrodden wallflowers all fell under their
purview. The comedies of the 2000s, in contrast, appear less interested in
cultural politics and national identity, less significant, and less meaningful
overall. The outcasts had found expression, Australia’s global branding was
secure, and Australian voices had pervaded both national and international cinema
for three decades. What was left?
We’ll
be chipping away at that question over the next few weeks, starting with these
three romantic comedies. The rom-com is a genre that hews close to formula,
with predictable outcomes and often diminishing returns, but when executed well
can provide solid popcorn entertainment and sometimes even strike deeper
chords. While none of these three films are stealth classics, for fans of the
genre – and those fans are legion – they provide the usual comforts as well as
some sneaky Antipodean charms.
Dating the Enemy
Director: Megan Simpson Huberman
Stars:Guy Pearce, Claudia Karvan, Matt Day, Lisa Hensley, John Howard
Brett
(Guy Pearce)is a slick music show host on the verge of bigger things. Tash
(Claudia Karvan) is a shy, awkward science journalist. Opposites attract and
Brett and Tash start dating, but one year into their relationship it’s obvious
their wildly different personalities are incompatible. However, when Brett and
Tash switch bodies and are forced to live each other’s jobs and lives, they
find themselves linked in new and seismic ways.
There’s
some solid gender-bending, fish-out-of-water comedy throughout Dating the Enemy, as the characters are
forced to inhabit, enact, and lampoon the opposite sex. Some of the jokes and
gender stereotypes are rather obvious, but overall the hits outweigh the strikes
and the film is consistently witty, perceptive, and surprisingly thoughtful.
Much of the film’s success rests on the comedic and romantic chemistry of its
leads. Pearce is one of Australia’s best working actors and over the last
decade has become a seal of good quality on locally made films, an assurance
that the product is good or at the very least interesting (see The Proposition, Animal Kingdom, The Rover, Holding the Man etc). He has fun here,
but the real revelation is Karvan, who I never realised was such a great
comedic actress. Her performance is terrific, and I find it puzzling that
Karvan, unlike Pearce, never really broke outside Australia (though based
on sentiments expressed here, that maybe more due to personal choice than celebrity
Darwinism). On a side note, this is one of four local productions featuring
both Pearce and Karvan: they also co-star in Errol Flynn biopic Flynn, 33 Postcards, and a recent Jack Irish series, none of which involve
comedic body switching.
Dating
the Enemy was
Megan Simpson Huberman’s sophomore and final feature film as a director, though she’s still
involved in Australian cinema, working in behind the scenes capacities on many
ventures and productions and currently serving on the Australian Directors
Guild’s Women in Film Action Committee. It’s a shame she hasn’t directed more
though, as Dating
the Enemy showcases
plenty of flair and savvy on its writer-director’s part. Frankly, I’m surprised
this was never snapped up for an American remake with folks like Adam Sandler
or Drew Barrymore or similarly mercenary casting, though another film discussed
later this month did become a Happy Madison joint. Stay tuned…
Danny Deckchair
Director: Jeff Balsmeyer
Stars:Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto, Justine Clarke, John Batchelor,
Anthony Phelan
Several
of the comedies covered this month feature imported international stars, a
recurring motif in Australian cinema in everything from Wake in Fright to Welcome to Woop Woop. I’m not sure either international or Antipodean audiences were
clamoring for more Rhys Ifans in romantic lead roles, but his presence in Danny Deckchair brings an appropriate
outsider, alien quality to an outsider, alien character.
Danny
(Ifans) is a Sydney-based laborer whose dreams of a romantic camping trip are
thwarted by his partner’s (Justine Clarke) careerist and extramarital
pursuits.He finds escape in the unlikeliest of forms: a prank involving a
deckchair and hundreds of balloons ends up lifting him from a social
shindig and whisking him away to the small mountain community of Clarence,
where he crashes into the backyard and life of local parking inspector Glenda
(Miranda Otto).
Danny
Deckchair is
one of three films directed by Jeff Balsmeyer, whose extensive career as a
storyboard artist includes local films Lantana and The Nugget and a huge, eclectic array of American films ranging
from Big to Do the Right Thing to The Last of the Mohicans to The Lawnmower Man. That knack for composition
and nutting out complex sequences shines through in the film’s signature set
piece described above, but the film works best in the scenes devoted to its
romantic coupling. After reading this interview it’s
hard not to picture all of Rhys Ifans’ characters as prickly and addled under
the influence of antibiotics (in much the same way Jessie Eisenberg’s characters
all seem a bit Aspergery post-The Social Network), but that weird quality makes him an interesting,
unconventional romantic lead. He’s well-matched by Otto, always entertaining
(see The Last Days of Chez Nous) and at times radiant here.
Like Dating the Enemy, there’s a touch of
magic realism to Danny Deckchair and a propensity towards cliché (in this case: country
life is a restorative, healing balm for disenchanted urbanites suffering big
city malaise, and introverted country spinsters need a big city guy to rekindle
their zest for life). It’s saccharine, but has some rough edges and weird grace
notes that make it worthwhile viewing.
I Love You Too
Director: Daina Read
Stars:Brendan Cowell, Peter Dinklage, Yvonne Strahovski, Peter
Helliar, Megan Gale
While
watching I Love
You Too, I
was reminded of a funny Joe Queenan essay, ‘You can’t always get what you
want’, where the cantankerous critic joked about the saturation of films with
the same plots (Honeymoon
in Vegas/Indecent Proposal), similar titles (Coming to America/Made in America), or the same actors doing
similar things in similar roles (The Firm/A Few
Good Men).
The same could be said about the shaggy triptych of I Love You Too, I Love You Man, and I Love You Phillip Morris, all featuring goofy
protagonists (Brendan Cowell, Paul Rudd, Jim Carrey) who must overcome some
form of arrested development (commitment phobia, lack of male friends,
compulsive criminality) to be with their long-suffering companions (Yvonne
Strahovski, Rashida Jones, Ewan McGregor).
On
top of imported international stars (of which this film boasts another, very
fine example in Peter Dinklage), another motif among comedies featured this
month is television and radio comedians generating their own big screen
material. Comedian and former Rove Live co-host Peter Helliar supplies the script and co-stars
here, playing the similarly developmentally stunted best friend of Brendan
Cowell’s Jim. In a drunken stupor following his inevitable break-up with
Strahovski’s Alice, Jim falls asleep in the car of stranger Charlie (Dinklage),
who exhibits a far superior knack for words and self-expression. Jim recruits
Charlie to help woo Alice back, and in return Charlie recruits Jim to help him
deliver a romantic letter to international model Francesca Moretti (Megan
Gale).
Like
Ifans, Cowell isn’t an intuitive romantic lead, but again this
counter-intuitive casting pays off, with Cowell giving Jim a certain schlubby
everyman appeal. Strahovski engenders sympathy as his frustrated girlfriend,
Helliar and Dinklage provide solid comedic support (fans of Dinklage’s droll
delivery on Game of Thrones will enjoy his work here), and future Mad Max: Fury Road alum Gale invests her fantasy
figure character with some humanity. While Danny Deckchair and Dating the Enemy were both helmed by
writer-directors, directorial duties on Helliar’s frequently funny script went
to Daina Read, a television veteran with credits on polished programming
like Miss
Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Offspring, and The Doctor Blake Mysteries (most of which I confess I’ve never seen).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I Love You Too is the best-directed, slickest, but also most impersonal
of this week’s offerings. That may sound like a dig, but it’s not: while
writer-director-related ‘auteurism’ carries currency and the impersonal is
commonly characterized as a deficit, Australian films would benefit from
nurturing more talents like Read, whose ability to execute smart, solid
commercial material is an asset.
Ben Kooyman