Men's Group

Rating:

* * * *

Verdict:

Risky, bracing and brave.

This no-budget Australian production, a labour of love in more ways than one, springs from the growing suburban sub-culture in which men meet regularly to do something other than drink, watch sport on TV or concrete someone's patio: they talk, from the heart, about the pleasures and perils and, yes, the pain of being men.

Six men meet at the home of one of them, Paul (Gleeson): wannabe comedian Freddy (Rodgers) uses bad jokes to cover up his bitterness; elderly, refined Cecil (Reid) can't come to terms with widowhood; the withdrawn, homophobic Lucas (Le Marquand) has come because he has been told he has to; Moses (Tassone) is a rumbling volcano of anger; and aggressive, pugnacious Alex (Dodwell) wonders why he doesn't get on with his teenage son.

They sound like archetypes, if not stereotypes, and the film is, perhaps inevitably, slightly schematic. But there's nothing forced or artificial about the execution, as Joy (who co-wrote with producer John Simpson) leads the men into deeper and darker territory.

"It's good to see blokes talking about stuff," says Lucas, at one point, "it's good to see people opening up." That's the point of the film, of course, but the irony is that it's locked-up Lucas speaking and, what's more, it's early in the film, before anyone has let much slip. It's a great line because it touches on the fear of disclosure that hampers so many men's lives. Being real, the film wants to tell us, is a risk.

And it's not shy about taking risks itself. There was a script - it won best script at the audience-voted Inside Film awards last year - but the actors never saw it. By a technique the film-makers called whispering, each actor was told roughly what to do and say but - crucially - he didn't know what the others were being told. The directed improvisation yields pure gold - and it's richer for the fact that everything they printed was a first take.

There are moments of awkwardness, to be sure, and the handheld camera gets a bit wearing at times but, to paraphrase the beer commercial, this film touches parts of you that other films don't reach.

All men should see this film. And they should all take along one of their best mates.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Grant Dodwell (pictured), Paul Gleeson, Steve Le Marquand, Don Reid, Steve Rodgers, Paul Tassone, William Zappa.

Director:

Michael Joy

Running time:

105 mins

Rating:

R16 (violence, offensive language, drug use, sex)