MENTAL

Australia, 2012, 116 minutes, Colour.
Toni Collette, Anthony La Paglia, Liev Schreiber, Caroline Goodall, Lily Sullivan, Kerry Fox, Rebecca Gibney, Deborah Mailman, Sam Clark.
Directed by P.J. Hogan.

Often funny, very often uncomfortable and confronting.

Most people are sensitive as to how they actually refer to, let alone talk about, mental illness and its variety of manifestations. There is a culture of reserve, people not wanting to discriminate or offend. On the other hand, there is a blatant and insensitive reference, and insensitive language, to mock the mentally sick as well as insult those with whom they disagree. These were thoughts continually rising while I watched the film and will probably be the reaction of many audiences.

Writer-director, P.J.Hogan made on of Australia’s best wry comedies, Muriel’s Wedding. The town then was Porpoise Spit, somewhere near the NSW-Queensland border. This time it is Dolphin Beach, not too far away. And, once again, there is a very dysfunctional family (five daughters who think they are mental and keep looking up books and have spirited discussion to affirm that they are), an absent father who is the local mayor, campaigning for re-election, but never home, neglecting his wife, despising his daughters, with plenty of local liaisons (Anthony La Paglia). But, as with Jeanie Drynan’s portrait of Muriel’s sad and quietly despairing mother. This time it is Rebecca Gibney, similar in many ways. She gives a fine performance. Hogan has explained in many interviews how he has dramatised his own family experiences in both Muriel and Mental.

The film spends time setting up the family scene, the girls running wild as the neighbours complain. As with the use of ABBA songs for Muriel, Mental capitalises on the songs from The Sound of Music (even to the opening flying over the Gold Coast hinterland mountains to the overture until the camera lands in the backyard with Mum doing a Julie Andrews). There is some exuberant singing as well as an ironic use of Edelweis towards the end. The next door neighbour, Nancy (Kerry Fox) is an obsessive cleaner and a gossip. Mum has to go to an institution – they say she is in Wollongong for a holiday.

What is Dad to do? Then, in the street he notices a hitchhiker and invites her to look after the girls. She is the seemingly (and actually) outlandish Shaz, played with such enthusiastic relish and diverse skills, by Toni Collette.

As with those older films like Teorema or Entertaining Mr Sloane where a stranger comes to live with a family and transforms it, Shaz in her own eccentric way, takes the girls under her wing and helps them learn self-esteem, gets the feel of things from Nancy (a well-coiffeured disciple of Pauline Hanson) and her daughter (which leads to a surprisingly funny and feeling lesbian sub-plot with Nancy’s daughter and Shaz’s aboriginal friend, played with mischievous verve by Deborah Mailman. Caroline Goodall is very good as the mother’s uptight and jealous older sister.

As if this was not enough, there is a sub-plot with Coral, the eldest girl, and her working in a shark exhibit and a romance with a fellow-worker, as well as the intervention of the owner (taking a long time to recognise who this bearded and heavily Australian-accented actor was: Liev Schreiber) and his interactions with Shaz. (Though I could have done without so much ‘youse’, ‘wuz’… and other over-flat accents and grammar, and there is some crass language.)

While all the characters have plenty of screen time and develop their characters strongly, the film does belong to Toni Collette who gives a whirlwind of a performance, often right over the top, at other times emotionally quiet, manifestations of her own life and being ‘mental’.

You might not want to do this, but the film would probably reveal a lot more on a second viewing.


1. Australian quirky films – and beyond? The title, the mentally ill, madness itself, normality?

2. The work of P.J. Hogan, his films, drawing on his own life experience, repeating themes from Muriel’s Wedding?

3. Dolphin Beach, the Australian country town, the streets and houses, the interiors? The theme park and the sharks? Boats? Institutions? Realism – with the touch of the surreal?

4. The tone of the film, humour, serious?

5. The musical score, the songs, the use of the range of songs from The Sound of Music, the opening and the Gold Coast mountains, the backyard and the line, The Sound of Music, The Lonely Goatherd, the enthusiastic singing of the group at the institution? The use of Edelweiss at the election campaign? Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye? Audience response, liking the songs from The Sound of Music, those who looked down on The Sound of Music, the humour and the parody of the film?

6. Audiences uncomfortable watching the film, talking about mental illness, showing it? The discrimination against the mentally ill, laughing at, laughing with? Jokes – or not? The critique of society and who is normal? Those claiming to be normal – and their obsessions and eccentricities? The girls and their studying the books, the descriptions of mental illness, the girls identifying, misunderstanding, Michelle and the actual schizophrenia, the norms for normality? The range of obsessives and others within normal society?

7. The introduction to Shirley, her age, dowdy, singing The Sound of Music, the washing on the line, her dancing, movement within the house, her daughters and the alert, their embarrassment and hiding, the girls and their being accused of running wild, their manners at meals, the absent father, Shirley and her husband not loving her, talking to Nancy – and being direct, even insulting? Going to have the doughnuts, the girls and their meanness in insisting she eat? The discussions with Doris? Her sister’s support, meanness, embarrassment? Shirley screaming? The father’s response, the phone call, the crisis? Shirley going to the institution? The cover of her being on holidays in Wollongong? Her back-story and her explanation, telling Shaz, her first meeting with Barry, the sexual assault? The marriage? Her pregnancy with Coral?

8. Barry and his absence, his encounter with Shirley, the sexual assault, the marriage? Having all the girls – and his regrets about not having boys? His being the mayor of Dolphin Beach? His liaisons with the secretary, with others? His advisers and the political context? The electioneering? The emergency at home, his reaction, not knowing his daughters’ names, upbraiding them for being girls? His seeing Shaz on the street, his turning around, picking her up? His neglect – Shaz getting him to come home, the meals, his being trapped, possibilities for his relationship with his children, his visit to Shirley, the apology? Shirley’s reaction, the reconciliation? His going back on his word? The Edelweiss sequence?

9. The girls, their range, ages, names? The issue of madness? Their behaviour, running wild, their uniforms? Their being embarrassed about their mother? School and their reputation? Wanting to be mad? Michelle, her actual schizophrenia, her voices, her visions of the people in Lost in Space, their search and her reaction, her fears, sleeping in the shed?

10. Coral, the oldest, her telling her story, the attempted suicide, falling on the car, her failure and embarrassment to her father? Her reading the book about mental illness? The girls talking themselves into being mental? The behaviour at meals, Coral and her authority?

11. Nancy and her being the neighbour, doing her yard, looking over the fence, talking with Shirley, Shirley insulting her? Her obsessive cleanliness? Shirley backing the car out, knocking the garbage bins over? Cleaning her own drive with a toothbrush? Donna as her daughter? The lesbian comment and her reaction? Shaz and the visit, Donna and Nancy pouring out all the scandal and gossip? Her remark about the Aboriginal camp and Shaz’s reaction? Donna and the gossip? Sandra, the visit, Nancy and her being uncomfortable? Sandra and Donna and their canoodling, leaving, the ceremony in Adelaide? Their return? Happy together? Nancy and her collapse and in the institution?

12. Doris, the older sister, her obsession with the dolls, the competitions, taking one of the girls’ hair and using it? The scene with Shirley in the diner, the doughnuts, her embarrassment? Her external niceness? Her fear of Shaz and the dog? The visit, apologising to Shirley, the dolls and their destruction – and her relapse, her bitterness? The end and Shaz destroying the dolls?

13. Coral, her work, the sharks, Trout, his friendliness, Trevor and his reaction, the taser? Trout and his apology to Coral? Their being together? Going to the waterslide, going down the slide? The relationship? Later and the interaction with Trevor, the use of the taser again?

14. Shaz, her appearance, the dog, her personality? Extrovert, over the top, her manner, way of speech, her offhand remarks and comic touches, her clothes? Encountering Barry, in the car, agreement, her conditions?

15. The credibility of her character, behaviour – and the later explanations about her daughter, Trevor, the daughter’s death, the shark? Her own mental condition? Following Trevor, finding a family to care for and transforming them?

16. Shaz with the girls, coping with them, the jokes, their manners, taking them out? Identifying Michelle’s real mental illness? The discussions about Lost in Space? Her discernment that the other girls were not mental? Her reading of the book, the comments on psychiatrists, doctors, diagnosis of mental illness? Her comments on the neighbours and who was normal or not?

17. Shaz, the visit to Nancy, the gossip, the interview with Doris, with Barry? Controlling all of them?

18. Trevor, the taser, Coral and her phone call and embarrassment, his story, his daughter’s death, the sharks, his explanation of his philosophy of sharks as an image for human existence? With Shaz, the truth? The build-up to their confrontation? Trout, the taser, tying Trevor up? The escape, on the boat? Shaz and her control, trying to destroy and get rid of the shark? The boat, the destruction, Trevor in the water, Shaz diving in, their looks to each other, deaths?

19. The girls and their involvement in these shenanigans? Their learning, changing?

20. Shaz and the visit to the institution, the depth of the discussions with Shirley, the truth? Meeting Sandra, their friendship, singing, Sandra and the elopement?

21. With Shaz gone, things reverting back to what they were, Shirley at home, relating to the daughters? The election? Barry and his wanting Shirley to support him? Her conditions? Shaz and her reappearance – announcing that she didn't die? Edelweiss, Barry singing, Shirley, the girls, the reflection of the family in The Sound of Music? People’s puzzled responses, everybody joining in?

22. Shaz and her capacity for survival – and her continuing as the mental stranger who entered people’s homes and transformed families? The future of the Moochmore family?

23. The nature of Australian comedy, ironies, quirkiness – humour and truth?