I watched The Castle (1997) for the April movie club… great choice Zachary Kai!
In short, I really enjoyed this film. Go watch it.
I’ll admit the trailer didn’t really sell me on it but after watching the first eight minutes on YouTube, I was in.
It’s about a working-class Australian family that fights to keep their beloved home from being torn down to expand an airport. The humor is definitely my style with a fast stream of jokes, most of which came from the dialog but there were also some fun visual gags.
What I especially liked though, was how endearing I found Darryl Kerrigan and his family. I found myself really admiring how much his family loved and supported each other and how he didn’t need much to be content and how he could still marvel at things most of us take for granted… like power lines.
I’m glad I discovered this Australian classic and learned a bit more about Australian culture (I now know what Rissoles are). I haven’t seen many Australian comedies, but what I have seen I’ve enjoyed, like Colin from Accounts.
I’m looking forward to discovering some more gems through the Indieweb movie club.
Alternate version
I rented the movie from Amazon Prime, but having first watched a portion on youtube I noticed some differences in the dialog.
After some searching, I learned that there is actually an alternate version that replaces certain Australianisms with more American sounding terms or expressions. They had the original cast re-record the lines so it’s not very noticeable if you don’t know any better. You can see the differences on IMDB.
What I found more off-putting was the tweaks to the soundtrack. For instance, the scene where Steve is showing Darryl his helmet invention has no music in the original but in the American version All Right Now is playing which I found rather jarring. So be sure to watch the original if you can.