This Australian drama is more affecting than its unattractive title and contrived set-up promised, thanks to LaPaglia, an Australian native who has done well in American television but still takes occasional big-screen roles at home (Lantana; Balibo).
A pleasure to watch, he's an actor whose features, at once craggy and droopy, make him ideal for the role of Adelaide real estate agent Frank Mollard, a man with a serious case of the existential blues.
His ex-wife (Home and Away vet Clarke, playing a soap opera star) talks to him like a big sister; his son (Crowther) doesn't talk to him at all; and he can't summon up the bland facsimile of sincerity necessary to do his job.
There's a lovely recurring motif in which, in featureless voice-over, he defines every scene's location in agent-speak ("This impressive property boasts") as if by pacing out the dimensions of rooms and reducing experiences to 100 words, will make life manageable. His Weltschmerz contrasts with the eerie self-assurance of his glad-handing boss, Phillip (our own Clarke, who steals most scenes he's in).
