When the Cheshire emerges...

A noice duo this week, with Aussie hornbags Kath and Kim back and bigger than... well, the small screen, and a man finding himself through femininity. Share if you like :)

Kath and Kimderella (PG)

ONCE upon a time in the faraway land of Fountain Lakes, there lived two hornbags in their own little bubble... only for it to be burst big time. Modern Aussie icons Kath and Kim finally get the big screen treatment five years after the completion of their show. It was only a matter of a decade before Kim found herself international stardom, but for Kath the experience proves quite the surprise.

The foxy mother (Jane Turner) takes daughter Kim (Gina Riley) and Kim’s second best friend Sharon (Magda Szubanski) to the fictional Italian city of Papilloma on a trip won at a pharmacy. They get there to find it abandoned by its ruler King Javier (Rob Sitch), who still lives comfortably in his castle with page Alain (Richard E Grant) and masked son Juleo (Erin Mullally). As the king makes his moves on Kath and Kim is living her dream as a temporary princess, husbands Kel (Glenn Robbins) and Brett (Peter Rowsthorne) sit at home wondering who will win the latest Masterchef challenge.

No expense has been spared in bringing the foxy morons to the big screen, much in the same way The Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos tried to recapture the success of its predecessor. The move to Mediterranean Europe away from suburban life is a parallel, as well as the introduction of new ballplayers. However, Riley and Turner’s biggest challenge was successfully pulling off a story three times the show’s normal length.

The story throws pop culture at you like you’re watching 3D, only you’re not and it bounces back to them for more material. Riley and Turner, extensively involved in the creative process as with the show, are still inventive, and find some of their best dialogue in the banter irrelevant to the movement of the plot. Their chemistry is still second to none, and the duo is just as good bouncing off one another as posh and snide alter-egos Prue and Trude - whose own trip to Italy is much more straightforward as an escape from the droll they see as Australian life.

Constant allusions to Sharon’s sexuality are more pertinent given Szubanski’s choice to come out earlier this year, but all of the relationships are questioned and tested. The Fountain Lakes posse don’t like change, but Kath’s attitude takes them a long way. Turner steals the show as the can-do mum, confident in her stuck-in-1983 look and melodramatic on cue. She takes Kath to a new place and comes off the better for it, proving she’s still at the top of her game as one of Australia’s best comedians.

Director Ted Emery is back on board, but while a sometimes frenetic feel was well suited to their crazy suburbia, his feature version is amplified by a thousand and makes the film look cheap. Likely intentional bad effects while Kath finds herself on the road are ultimately too much and the subsequently intended nostalgic feel makes way for an all-audience cringe. Shot in just two weeks, it’s not difficult to draw that conclusion.

It’s C-grade at best, but from that it’s the best of them. One of Australian film’s greatest cameos emerges from Frank Woodley, and they clearly had a ball. We must accept that these ladies, as much as they think they’re the bee’s knees, will always keep their protective bubble close at hand. It’s a little bit uneyewsuel.

Rating: 2.5/5
Now screening at Reading Cinemas

*Published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) from Saturday 8/9/2012

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*Published in the Mailbox Shopper (Dubbo) from Wednesday 5/9/2012

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