MOVIE REVIEW
LIKE “Analyze This,” the scruffy, offbeat Aussie comedy “The Castle” proves yet again that a simple, unoriginal premise worked over by talented gag writers can yield surprisingly satisfying results.
The budget on this charming little picture wouldn’t have paid half a day of De Niro’s “Analyze This” salary, but the audience rakes in just as many terrific lowbrow laughs.
The Kerrigan family is a sad-sack lot, pasty-skinned simpletons who live in Cooloroo, a cruddy Melbourne suburb, under power lines and at the edge of an airport. It ain’t much, but it’s home.
Dad Darryl (Michael Caton, in an uproariously good performance) is a hale and hearty tow-truck driver bursting with democratic optimism and robust, unaffected pride in his homely family and modest holdings.
He kvells over wife Sal’s (Anne Tenney) meatloaf as if it were a delectation from Julia Child’s own kitchen. Darryl’s sons haven’t got the sense God gave gravel, but to him, they’re gems. His dink-brained daughter Tracey’s certificate from a beauty academy means as much to this proud papa as a Harvard Ph.D. In short, Darryl is a good ol’ boy in the best sense of the phrase.
But the Kerrigans failed to get the message that they’re white trash who ought to roll over at the command of their social betters. When the government tries to force the family off their land so the airport can be expanded, Darryl won’t stand for it; he can’t be bought out, and he can’t be pushed off. “It’s not a house, it’s a home!” he fumes.
He takes his quixotic fight through the courts, convinced, in a “Winslow Boy” sort of way, that right will be done. Not a chance – until a sophisticated retired lawyer (Charles “Bud” Tingwell) takes up Darryl’s crusade.
There’s never a moment’s doubt as to how this crowd-pleaser will end, so all its pleasures lie in the baroquely detailed, wickedly observational humor. It’s like an affectionate social anthropology lesson on the lower middle class, almost all of which translates just fine from its Australian setting.
Hearing Tracey Kerrigan (Sophie Lee), just back from her Thailand honeymoon, raving about the wonders of airline food, reminded me of my own granny’s “stately pleasure dome” recollection of the shiny bathrooms at Shoji Tabuchi’s theater in Branson, Mo.
“The Castle’s” four writers know what they’re talking about.
Not everything works. The jokes become a bit too obvious, and attempts at socially aware commentary (“I’m beginning to understand how the Aboriginals feel”) seem belabored.
Even so, “The Castle” was a massive hit in Australia, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a relentless sendup of working-class suburban tastes and attitudes, but one that gives its audience permission to laugh at its unfashionable targets by championing their underdog status and celebrating their essential decency.
The Kerrigans are holy fools, and “The Castle’s” foolishness is irresistible.