...does little more than disappoint its audience with annoying characters and stereotypical situations.
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It would appear that the producers of "Introducing the Dwights" were looking to make another quirky indie comedy along the lines of "The Full Monty" or "Kinky Boots." Unfortunately, this 2007 Australian import does little more than disappoint its audience with annoying characters and stereotypical situations.
From director Cherie Nowlan ("The Wedding Party") and TV writer Keith Thompson, and originally titled "Clubland," the movie found few fans in America, where it saw only a limited release. Once one sees the film, one can understand why Warner Independent Pictures pulled the plug early. You see, it's not really a "comedy" at all but, rather, a so-called "slice-of-life" tale almost equally divided between a mother's depression and a son's coming of age. But since neither the director nor the writer seems to have known exactly whose story they were telling, the mother's or the son's, the result is something of a helter-skelter grab bag.
The mom is Jean Dwight (Brenda Blethyn), an aging stage comic whose act consists of playing a more abrasive Phyllis Diller, an angry housewife. Jean cannot understand why the act isn't more popular, blaming her ex-husband for her downfall, and she now makes ends meet working in a canteen, tutoring young entertainers in her house, and taking to the boards once or twice a week at a local nightclub.
Her son, Tim (Khan Chittenden), is in his early twenties and works for a moving-van company. He's shy, somewhat inarticulate, and inexperienced with women, making his romance with a new girlfriend, Jill (Emma Booth), awkwardly sweet and touching. Which is more than I can say for anything else in the picture.
Tim also has a mentally challenged brother, Mark (Richard Wilson), who, according to Tim, "was brain damaged at birth." However, Mark seems smarter than anyone else in the movie, and he's the most reasonable of anybody. Maybe that tells you something about the other characters, or maybe it's supposed to be part of a symbolic message. I dunno.
Tim's father, John Maitland (Frankie J. Holden), divorced from his mom, is a part-time country singer and a full-time security guard. Tim's mom blames him for destroying her career by dragging her to Australia when she could have been a success in England. The father has the best line in the movie when he tells his son, "There is no problem so grave that a heartfelt apology can't resolve, even when you've got no idea what you've done wrong."
The only other characters of interest are Kelly (Katie Wall), Jill's witless roommate; Ronnie Stubbs (Philip Quast), a big-time entertainer; Lana (Rebecca Gibney), one of Jean's friends; and Shane (Russell Dykstra), a business associate. None of them are important to the story except to add needed color, variety, and maybe a little padding, and all of them come off as practically nonentities.
The two simultaneous stories involve the mother Jean's attempt at a comeback in the entertainment world and the son Tim's attempt to leave home and live with his new girlfriend. To say that the two stories do not exactly mesh smoothly would be an understatement. They seem like they belong in different movies.
Despite the boy's story, Jean is central character, and she's mostly a pain. She's a pain to herself, a pain to others around her, and pain to watch. She's so grasping and demanding, she won't let Tim out of her sight for a moment. She's selfish, thinking more of her career than of her sons, yet she needs them to comfort her constantly. Although none of these are uncommon behaviors in real life, the film offers nothing that is fresh or new to say about them. The whole thing seems pretty humdrum and routine.
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