Barry Moochmore (Anthony LaPaglia) is the Mayor of Dolphin Heads where he pays more attention to his re-election than his troubled wife Shirley (Rebecca Gibney) or his daughters Coral (Lilly Sullivan), Michelle (Malorie O'Neill), Leanne (Nicole Freeman), Kayleen (Chelsea Bennett) and Jane (Bethany Whitmore). All the females feel marginalised and a little mental, and the girls despair at their mother's unconventional behaviour. But when Shirley is sent to 'Wollongong' for a 'holiday', and Barry brings hitchiking Shaz (Toni Collette) into the house, they meet the personification of 'mental' and unconventional - and proud of it. Shez has a secret agenda, but until that is uncovered, the Moochmore family is transformed. Some of their family and neighbours are also caught in the crazy web ...
Review by Louise Keller:
In P.J. Hogan's Mental, there are brush strokes of genius and dark clouds of overkill in this ambitious film in praise of family and being accepted for who you are. It's been 18 years since Hogan's breakthrough hit Muriel's Wedding which made our hearts soar as we laughed with the characters, and made us weep from its flip-side pathos. It was also Toni Collette's calling card. Who did not embrace her unpopular, overweight Muriel, who loved ABBA songs and who dreamed of getting married?
In Mental, all the signs point to Hogan wanting to recreate another Muriel's Wedding. Even his leading lady, Collette is on board, leading the charge in a reality that is surreal and over-the-top. Muriel was set in Porpoise Spit; Mental is in Dolphin Heads and The Sound of Music has replace the obsession for ABBA music. There are laughs but not enough and the moments of pathos do not come naturally. There is no question that Hogan is tackling high risk subject matter in the topic of mental illness and the line that divides humour, bad taste and pathos is a fine one indeed.
But let me tell you what I like about Mental: the characters, who are all obsessed by something. There's Liev Schreiber with a fair dinkum Aussie accent as a crazed shark-obsessed theme-park owner and Deborah Mailman with a cheeky grin as the mad-as-a-hatter lesbian. I was delighted to see (and hear) that Anthony LaPaglia can remember how to speak Strine in his guise as an adulterous politician and absent father unable to remember the name of his daughters.
Lilly Sullivan is a real find as the impressionable teenage Coral, who works for the theme-park and has a crush on the suitably named guitar-strumming surfie-type Trout (Sam Clark). Beautiful Rebecca Gibney is almost unrecognisable as the overweight, insecure Shirley Moochmore, who has always dreamed of being one of the Von Trapp family (and a credit to Austria) as she sings the songs from the film.
Glazed china dolls are the obsession of Shirley's older sister Doris, beautifully played by Caroline Goodall, while Kerry Fox bravely plays Nancy, the cleanliness-obsessed neighbour whose daughter (Hayley Magnus) cannot keep her legs together. The other Moochmore kids are excellent, too.
Toni Collette warrants a separate round of applause for her commitment to Shaz, the pot-smoking hitchhiker with the grandiose notion of avenging the perpetually humiliated. Arriving on the scene with her dog Ripper (the scene in which Ripper buries his nose between Shirley's legs is a match for the dog's name), Shaz is a larger than life creation intent on changing not only her destiny but that of those around her. Crashing into the Moochmore world of chaos, Shaz brings with her a grandiose notion that it is everyone else who is 'mental'; she and the Moochores represent the next step of human evolution - that of perfection.
It is the tone and the touch that suffer. Instead of a light touch, Hogan makes his point too obviously, which in turn lessens the impact and the humour. The Sound of Music jokes go far too long, as does everything else in the film. The scenes in which the film's pathos is revealed feel separate from the rest of the narrative. It is a shame because the highly imaginative characters with their obsessions and foibles are wonderfully drawn and should not be allowed to be swept away in a wave of overstatement. Brisk editing and a little bit of subtlety within the colourful chaos would have been more than welcome. Instead, we are left disappointed.
Barry Moochmore (Anthony LaPaglia) is the Mayor of Dolphin Heads where he pays more attention to his re-election than his troubled wife Shirley (Rebecca Gibney) or his daughters Coral (Lilly Sullivan), Michelle (Malorie O'Neill), Leanne (Nicole Freeman), Kayleen (Chelsea Bennett) and Jane (Bethany Whitmore). All the females feel marginalised and a little mental, and the girls despair at their mother's unconventional behaviour. But when Shirley is sent to 'Wollongong' for a 'holiday', and Barry brings hitchiking Shaz (Toni Collette) into the house, they meet the personification of 'mental' and unconventional - and proud of it. Shez has a secret agenda, but until that is uncovered, the Moochmore family is transformed. Some of their family and neighbours are also caught in the crazy web ...
Review by Louise Keller:
In P.J. Hogan's Mental, there are brush strokes of genius and dark clouds of overkill in this ambitious film in praise of family and being accepted for who you are. It's been 18 years since Hogan's breakthrough hit Muriel's Wedding which made our hearts soar as we laughed with the characters, and made us weep from its flip-side pathos. It was also Toni Collette's calling card. Who did not embrace her unpopular, overweight Muriel, who loved ABBA songs and who dreamed of getting married?
In Mental, all the signs point to Hogan wanting to recreate another Muriel's Wedding. Even his leading lady, Collette is on board, leading the charge in a reality that is surreal and over-the-top. Muriel was set in Porpoise Spit; Mental is in Dolphin Heads and The Sound of Music has replace the obsession for ABBA music. There are laughs but not enough and the moments of pathos do not come naturally. There is no question that Hogan is tackling high risk subject matter in the topic of mental illness and the line that divides humour, bad taste and pathos is a fine one indeed.
But let me tell you what I like about Mental: the characters, who are all obsessed by something. There's Liev Schreiber with a fair dinkum Aussie accent as a crazed shark-obsessed theme-park owner and Deborah Mailman with a cheeky grin as the mad-as-a-hatter lesbian. I was delighted to see (and hear) that Anthony LaPaglia can remember how to speak Strine in his guise as an adulterous politician and absent father unable to remember the name of his daughters.
Lilly Sullivan is a real find as the impressionable teenage Coral, who works for the theme-park and has a crush on the suitably named guitar-strumming surfie-type Trout (Sam Clark). Beautiful Rebecca Gibney is almost unrecognisable as the overweight, insecure Shirley Moochmore, who has always dreamed of being one of the Von Trapp family (and a credit to Austria) as she sings the songs from the film.
Glazed china dolls are the obsession of Shirley's older sister Doris, beautifully played by Caroline Goodall, while Kerry Fox bravely plays Nancy, the cleanliness-obsessed neighbour whose daughter (Hayley Magnus) cannot keep her legs together. The other Moochmore kids are excellent, too.
Toni Collette warrants a separate round of applause for her commitment to Shaz, the pot-smoking hitchhiker with the grandiose notion of avenging the perpetually humiliated. Arriving on the scene with her dog Ripper (the scene in which Ripper buries his nose between Shirley's legs is a match for the dog's name), Shaz is a larger than life creation intent on changing not only her destiny but that of those around her. Crashing into the Moochmore world of chaos, Shaz brings with her a grandiose notion that it is everyone else who is 'mental'; she and the Moochores represent the next step of human evolution - that of perfection.
It is the tone and the touch that suffer. Instead of a light touch, Hogan makes his point too obviously, which in turn lessens the impact and the humour. The Sound of Music jokes go far too long, as does everything else in the film. The scenes in which the film's pathos is revealed feel separate from the rest of the narrative. It is a shame because the highly imaginative characters with their obsessions and foibles are wonderfully drawn and should not be allowed to be swept away in a wave of overstatement. Brisk editing and a little bit of subtlety within the colourful chaos would have been more than welcome. Instead, we are left disappointed.
Post a Comment