Mental

Mental is a pretty apt title for this over-the-top film by PJ Hogan. It's a pretty safe bet that it won't find the same kind of devoted audience that Muriel's Wedding found 18 years ago. Mental is a kind of companion piece to its predecessor, with both chronicling events from the writer/director's own crazy family life. Muriel's Wedding star Toni Collette, who's since gone on to become a huge star, once again teams up with Hogan. But can they recapture the magic of 18 years ago? Sadly, no. Sure, there are moments of comic brilliance but not enough of them, plus the caricature-ish way many of the characters are played just alienates rather than engages the viewer. I found it hard to care when you were supposed to.

Collette plays the intimidating hitchhiker, Shaz, who's brought in to the Moochmore household as the new babysitter of Barry's (Anthony LaPaglia) five daughters after Mum, Shirley (Rebecca Gibney) is packed off to Wollongong for a 'holiday' – read: stint in a psychiatric institution. Unfaithful Barry is the Mayor of Dolphin Heads (a place very similar to Muriel's Wedding's Porpoise Spit) and it's not good for his re-election prospects to have a 'mental' missus. Shaz is a kind of saviour to the Moochmore girls and is intent on helping them realise they're not all mental – it's the rest of the world and conformity that's the problem. Good message, but Shaz has another agenda altogether which is related to shark show operator, Trevor Blundall, played as a true-blue Aussie by Liev Schreiber.

Replacing the obsession with ABBA in Muriel's Wedding, this time Hogan goes for songs from The Sound Of Music, with Shirley wishing her family was like the Von Trapps. That bit's funny, and it has to be said that Rebecca Gibney is the real treat here with her brave performance as the overweight, frumpy housewife who just breaks under the pressure. Brisbane teenager Lilly Sullivan as oldest daughter, Coral, is also very good.