GO TO: JUST A FARMER | ONE PERFECT MATCH | THE NUT FARM
JUST A FARMER
Australia, 2023 Starring Leila Mcdougall, Susan Prior, Joel Jackson, Robert Taylor, Oliver Overton, Vivian McDougall, Damian Walshe-Howling, Trevor Jamieson, Louise Siversen. Directed by Simon Lyndon. 104 minutes. Rated M (Mature themes, suicide themes and coarse language)
There is something sad in hearing the dismissive phrase about someone, ‘Just a . . .’ This is a small but effective Australian film focusing on rural life and issues of mental health. In fact, at the beginning and end of the film, there is the urging for anyone anxious to contact Lifeline or Beyond Blue.
The power behind the film is Leila McDougall, a teacher and farmer’s wife who, with her husband, established the rural and remote health charitable organisation Live Rural in 2014. She was concerned about the mental health of farmers and rural workers. (Studies have found that people living in rural and remote Australia are up to twice as likely to die by suicide as people living in major cities.)
Mcdougall plays the central character, Alison, and much of the filming was done at the family property in Tatyoon, Victoria (including the sequence in the actual local Uniting Church), and many of the locals acting in the film, and local farm equipment used throughout.
Jackson is Alec. A farmer, he shows initial signs of some depression as he works with his alcoholic father, Owen (veteran actor Taylor). Soon into the film, he kills himself. The screenplay takes up the themes of stoic continuing with life, almost as if the tragedy had not happened. Alison perseveres with the tasks around the farm. The children are sad, somewhat withdrawn, the boy lashing out during a local football match. Owen continues his drinking at the pub, sad memories of his dead wife in the past, suffering a stroke.
Another theme, as you would expect and hope, is that of how whoever is suffering can unburden themselves, talk to someone, talk to someone who is empathetic. Alison relies on her sister who has come to help, finding a listening ear in the woman who runs the local pub. And, the importance of the mother talking with her children, listening to her children, enabling them to express their sorrow and puzzle.
This is a topical film, made with insight and compassion, a contribution to awareness of Australian mental health.
VAM Paddock Productions
Released 14 March
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ONE PERFECT MATCH
Australia, 2023. Starring Merritt Patterson, Joshua Sasse, Lynn Gilmartin, Meg Fraser, Callan Colley, Charlotte Chimes, Claire Weller Price, Mitchell Bourke. Directed by Jo-Anne Brechin. 87 minutes. Rated G.
Matchmaker Lucy Marks meets businessman Finn Grayson, and she immediately feels a spark. However, she then learns that he’s her new client. This is a date movie – literally. The title is that of a company that places people, dates and match, more personable than trawling a date site. Nearly 90 minutes of unremitting niceness. Not a harsh word, not a rude word heard throughout. Everyone and everything, even date meals which do not work out, is nice. Everything is ‘amazing’ or ‘cool’. This is what a perfect kind of Hallmark movie portrays as a lovely world. Sweetness and light.
Lucy (Patterson) began, and manages, her client-filled One Perfect Match Company. Within minutes of the start of the film, she encounters Finn (Joshua Sasse), a charmingly reticent Clark Kentish type (with Superman potential).
We know exactly what is going to happen, love at first sight, but can the matchmaker date a client? Lots of references to ethical considerations and professionalism, despite the urgings of Ella, her sister, and assistant, Paige. Ella is about to be married – and lots of lovely coincidences concerning chardonnay, a beautiful vineyard location for a wedding.
While set in the US, this is an Australian production, filmed in Brisbane, from the Steve Jaggi company which has specialised in this type of romance. The leading character is a Canadian actress, the leading man English. All the supporting cast are Australian. A nice, G-rated, and pleasantly un all demanding film for Romantics who want to sit back, relax and be charmed.
Jaggi Entertainment, distributor Athabasca Films
Released 29 February
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THE NUT FARM
Australia, 2023. Starring Arj Barker, Jonno Roberts, Madeleine West, Tiriel Mora, Roy Billing, Gyton Grantley, Steph Tisdell, Ashlee Lollback, Annie Byron, Dave Eastgate, JJ Pantano, Danny Faifai, Tracy Lee Maxwell, Brad McMurray. Directed by Scott Corfield. 91 minutes.
Intentionally, the title seems to be indicating some kind of mental establishment. While there are some quite strange goings-on, an absurd character or two, or three, the title actually refers to a property in the remote small Australian town of Cobweb; a macadamia farm.
This is a small Australian film, often tongue-in-cheek, happy to send up American innocents abroad, a jibe or three at some New Zealanders, and a range of local characters who populate Australian television series, especially the comedies
Our central character is an American, Brendan Brandon (Barker), who seems to be a cryptocurrency expert in San Francisco, giving self-satisfied speeches to admiring crowds, but then falling on hard times. We have already seen an old man seemingly prospecting, finding a manhole and going down – and disappearing. He is Mitch and his friend, Harry, phones Brendan to say he has inherited Mitch’s macadamia farm. What on earth does Brendan know about farms or macadamias? Answer, of course, nothing.
Brendan flies to Australia and is picked up from the plane by Esme who runs the local pub (incorporating all shops, the diner, the bar . . .), looking for all the world like a Dame Edna caricature. Harry is played by Mora in his sad sack style. There are various characters in the town, including old Dazza who spends time at the bar, Sgt Blake, who has all kinds of jobs in Cobweb from policing to delivering the mail (and enjoyable performance from Tisdale), the enterprising Farmer Dee who tells of an avocado farmer who has disappeared. He helps Brendan with the macadamia trees and cultivation – and then disappears.
What is Brendan to make of all of this? Especially when Harry tells him that he has to produce 20,000 tons of macadamia nuts to finally inherit.
Meanwhile, we look below the surface. There is a fracking enterprise which disturbs the locals and has disturbed Mitch. In the tunnels there is a mad scientist, Zoran (NZ actor Roberts), with an efficient assistant and two miners digging in the trenches). It is finally revealed what Zoran is up to – an attempt to assist New Zealand economy.
Since this is also a light comedy, there had better be a bit of romance. There is the enterprising farmer, Kim, who is attracted to Brendan (some of the audience perhaps not entirely sure why), and her rather precocious young son.
When Brendan fails by a couple of kilos to meet his quota, he goes prospecting and uncovers Zoran’s mad enterprise. And, happy ending, Brendan seeing sense, of course, and staying in Australia with Kim and her son and the macadamia nuts – and all the new friends in Cobweb.
Bonsai
Released 14 March