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Australia 2015
Directed by
Wayne Hope
98 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Chris Thompson
4 stars

Now Add Honey

Synopsis: When ex-pat Beth (Portia de Rossi) brings her movie star daughter, Honey Halloway (Lucy Fry), home to Australia for a break between Hollywood engagements, Beth’s sister, Caroline (Robyn Butler), seizes the opportunity to organise a family reunion. But when Beth is arrested for drug use and sent to rehab, Caroline agrees to take Honey in to the family home thus putting more pressure on her already strained relationship with husband, Richard (Erik Thomson), and creating tensions with her own teenage daughter Clare (Philippa Coulthard). And from there, things go from bad to worse.

Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope have carved out a neat little niche in television comedies like Librarians and Upper Middle Bogan that find their humour in the suburban lifestyle, reflecting back to us the foibles of our working relationships, our family relationships and our personal aspirations. In making the jump from small to big screen they build on their success, sticking to what they know but upping the ante by adding (as the title tells us) the wild-card element of international teenage celebrity.

For this venture, in addition to their producer roles, Butler serves as both writer and performer whilst Hope directs and their long working relationship shows in the confidence with which they take on the new medium. The cast – a mix of established actors and well-known comedians – is terrific and their roles, even the smaller parts, feel well developed and recognisable as characters rather than ideas of characters. In particular, Coulthard stands out as the no-nonsense teenage daughter and Robbie Magasiva wins more than just Caroline’s heart as romantic interest Sebastian Tasi.  And watch for Sandy Gore in a great little cameo as Diane the fascist photographer.

Perhaps the television pedigree that sits behind this film can be seen lurking in the shadows (it’s easy to imagine the Morgan family as the subject of a sit-com) but what’s impressive here is that, unlike many Australian comedies like Crocodile Dundee (1986) or The Castle (1997) or even Kenny (2006), Now Add Honey relies on more than just an essential Australian-ness to make us laugh.  Caroline’s offer to care for her famous niece releases a suppressed mid-life crisis and prompts a small journey of realisation that the wife-mother-sibling-martyr role she has been playing is neither sustainable nor self-affirming. It’s this aspect that brings something deeper to the story and leaves us with a more thoughtful and satisfying experience after the laughter ends.

 

 

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