My Mother Frank

An Australian comedy without a caricature or can of beer in sight! It is somewhat surprising that this film, based on well-observed characters brought to life by a strong cast did not do well at the domestic box office, but perhaps, aside from the title, writer-director Lamprell misjudged his potential audience.

Whilst still in the territory of the ‘quirky’ that is so characteristic of Australian comedy, the story of a middle-class housewife trying to use her brain enrols at university with her son, means that the approach is too ‘intelligent’ for an audience seeking broad laughs. On the other hand, whilst all the characters are white Anglo-Saxons, Lamprell makes the setting of Sydney University look like the cafeteria of the United Nations with the result that there is no recognisable ambience, as there was for the 1996 campus hit, Love And Other Catastrophes.The film might have had appeal for a comparable youth audience in its romantic sub-plot, but its reduction of the Rose Byrne character to a projection of male sexual fantasies means nothing for 50% of post-adolescent viewers to identify with, leaving the main focus on the character of a middle-aged woman, not generally renowned as a big audience drawcard.

Overall the film is closer to British films like Educating Rita, particularly with the casting of the Julie Walters-like Sinead Cusack in the main role of the mother. And in the film’s latter stages the simplistic feelgood factor is lain on so comprehensively as to alienate anyone who had been engaged by the film’s earlier blackly comic aspects. So unfortunately, as the film is otherwise a quality production, that pretty much cuts the film’s demographic down to slightly-twisted sentimental 50+ housewives and oglers of Ms Byrne's charms.

 

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