TEMPE TIP
Australia, 2001, 90 minutes, Colour.
Jason Donovan, Helen Dallymore, Gary Day, Gary Sweet.
Directed by Michael Ralph.
Tempe Tip is a small-budget comedy made in South Australia. It is one of those small suburban comedies, a collection of natural but a touch eccentric characters who all live in a street, help one another, have a quest to tunnel under the street to find opal - with consequent disasters and finally a happy ending.
Jason Donovan and Helen Dallymore are very nice as the couple who move into the street, are overwhelmed by the friendship and generosity of the multiracial and multicultural people there. There are Italians across the street. Some Indians nearby. There are some Russians. Gary Sweet is a would-be Elvis Presley imitator who is a good mechanic. Gary Day is the eccentric man next door who has the dream of finding opals and a vein of opals underneath all the houses.
The film is certainly geared towards an Australian audience, the characters are generally laid-back, the screenplay is full of Australianisms that could well be lost on an audience, for instance, like the Americans. However, it is in the tradition of the ordinary ocker comedies - and was made at the same time as a rather similar film (though set outside Mudgee in New South Wales), The Nugget.
1. Entertaining Australian comedy? Australian characters, style, manners of speaking, laid-back approach, emotional - with an opening to new cultures and new races settling in the ordinary suburban streets?
2. The title, Sydney and its Tempe Tip? The film made in South Australia? Orkney Street - and Joy reading the Merlin stories about Orkney to her children? Norman as the latter-day Merlin? The mixture of realism with the touch of fantasy?
3. The film limited to the street, the different houses, the tunnel? A very localised comedy? The musical score, the use of "Memories Are Made Of This"?
4. The Franklin family, buying their new house, moving in, mother and father and two children? Max and his feeling the house was not so good, Joy and her delight, her forcing him to carry her across the threshold? The rooms of the house, electricity, the rat with the fuses, Max putting it in his pocket - and Rebecca finding it? The advance of the neighbours, Alfonso and Maria, the gifts, Alfonso digging the garden without speaking? Nico in the bathroom and finding what was wrong with the house? The Russians and their looking to see what they could do, getting the electricity on? The Indian brothers, their blessing the house with Hindu rituals? Norman and his not talking to adults, the children talking to him? The screenplay introducing us to the range of characters?
5. Ordinary times, settling in, the garden, Jamie wanting the swimming pool? The children, their relationship to their parents, with the Russian boy and finding the mysterious group who buried things in the night?
6. Norman, meeting with Max, the proposal, the opal? The swimming pool, the digging of the tunnel? Max and his agreeing, Joy and her putting limits? Their having to go under Nico's house, bringing him in, bringing in the Indians, bringing in the Russians, bringing in Alfonso - especially when the council clerk came round to examine the pool and Alfonso warned him off?
7. Joy, her reaction, going along with the dream, the discussion about ambition and dreams? Her wanting it stopped, her talk with Norman, calling him Merlin, expecting him to close things down?
8. The men, the equipment for the tunnel, taking the palings from the park, trying to avoid Alfonso seeing them? Their success? Norman bringing it to a halt? Max and his disappointment, his dream?
9. Norman going down once more, the storm, the plank falling on Norman and everybody combining to rescue him? The water gushing in, the dangers for them all, their emerging in the pool? The irony of the boxes of money surfacing?
10. The children and their having seen the criminals, their seeming to be young adults burying the money? The temptation and hopes for all the people and what they could do with the money? Nico and a karaoke bar, Vladimir and his bringing his parents from Russia? Their decision to give the money back to the bank and be honest?
11. The serious talking, especially Vladimir talking about his parents, the communist background, his being ashamed of them, bringing them to Australia, to work with Alfonso? The Indians and the humour about their language, their being accepted, the nature of friendship?
12. The happy ending, the bank giving them a reward, fulfilling part of their dreams - and their all converging on the newcomers to the street as the group had with Max and Joy when they arrived? The observations about Australian men and women, marriage, family, ethnic backgrounds, hopes and ambitions, the nature of cooperation and friendship?
