Monkey Puzzle @ The Chauvel

When I got the invitation to the Opening Night of the new Australian film, “Monkey Puzzle” at The Chauvel Cinema in Paddington I immediately said yes. I really love Australian movies, even if there have been a lot of total dogs in recent years. And I love going to The Chauvel, as it’s located in such a great building.

And there was a nice connection with this film, as the partner of a colleague has written the music for this film. And so it was a combination of going along to support a work-mate, as well as a genuine interest in the film and a desire to go to The Chauvel. I invited Andrew to come along as I thought it was a film he might enjoy.

“What did you think?”, he asked me as we walked down Oxford Street after the film. “I’m kinda ambivalent”, I told him. “I didn’t dislike the film”, I added. I thought it was okay, and pretty good one for a first-time director.

The issue was that I didn’t really like the characters all that much. They were okay, but there wasn’t really enough of an introduction to really get to like them or hate them or have any feelings for them,

That way, when one of them died – or was he killed? – I guess I would have felt something a little. As it was, I didn’t really care that he died. He was an interesting enough character, but not interesting enough to care about, if you know what I mean.

It wasn’t a bad film, it wasn’t a good film.

As noted by Andrew, there’s a bit of eye-candy in the film, both in terms of The Blue Mountains and a couple of the actors. I guess that helped…