'Mental' - A new Australian movie from P J Hogan

'Mental' would have to be the funniest movie Jo and I have seen since 'Cosi'. Written and directed by PJ Hogan of 'Muriel's Wedding' fame (who was born and raised near my home town of Murwillumbah) the movie opens circling the amazing monolith of Mount Warning before settling in on the fictitious Dolphin Heads (in reality Burleigh Heads). Toni Collette, Rebecca Gibney, Anthony LaPaglia and Deborah Mailman make up the star list but the family of girls in the movie totally kick it along. Some scenes will not be for the more prudish hearts and the a fair bit of the language is at best described as colourful.

P J Hogan has no fear of placing his family history firmly in the centre of this movie. And as embarrassing as it might have been had this movie been a segment of my own family tree, at no time were there any parts that left me squeamish. The thing that I love about Australians is that they can look at themselves and laugh and Hogan is a master of this genre.

Check out the movie trailer then follow it up by going to see the movie and financially support some great Australian artists.

The story of his life ... PJ Hogan draws on his own childhood for Mental's plot. Photo: John Woudstra

It was only when PJ Hogan realised that his troubled family history was material for the screen rather than the therapist's couch that he made his first successful film.

''I struggled for a long time to get a break,'' says the Australian writer-director, best known for Muriel's Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding, Peter Pan and Confessions of a Shopaholic. ''The big breakthrough for me was accepting my family, was accepting 'this is who I am, these are my people, this is where I'm from, perhaps this is a story I have to tell'.''

We felt on much firmer ground with Mental because we thought, 'This is much funnier than Muriel's'. 

Hogan, who grew up on the far north coast of NSW, used his politician father's legal dramas in Muriel's Wedding. Now, having moved back from the US with his director wife Jocelyn Moorhouse, he has drawn on more family history for the black comedy Mental, which re-unites him with Toni Collette as a hitchhiker who becomes an eccentric nanny to a troubled family.

''The starting point for the film came with my mother's nervous breakdown while I was 12,'' he says.

''My dad, who was up for re-election, did not tell us or anybody that she'd had a breakdown and been committed. As we'd often hear him say: 'Nobody's going to vote for a guy whose wife's in a nuthouse.'''

As in Mental, Hogan's father picked up a hitchhiker and invited her home to look after his children. ''I came home from school and there was this strange woman rolling a cigarette, knife in her boot, dog beside her, and she said, 'Bit of a mess in here, innit?'''

''That was the woman who took care of us … she pretty much lived with us, I remember, for six to eight months, even after my mum returned home, because they got on.''

In Mental, which has Anthony LaPaglia and Rebecca Gibney as the parents of a troubled brood who all worry they are mad, Collette plays the colourful Shaz. Mental has some dark moments but Hogan believes it is not as black as Muriel's Wedding.

''Think about it: there's horrible cruelty to Muriel. Her friend gets cancer, she abandons her friend and the mother commits suicide,'' he says. ''We felt on much firmer ground with Mental because we thought, 'This is much funnier than Muriel's'.''

MENTAL

Director PJ Hogan. Stars Toni Collette, Anthony LaPaglia and Rebecca Gibney. MA15+. Now screening.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/nanny-state-20121004-270a0.html#ixzz28PuEbDGB