When a lot of Aussie films come out, that purport to be comedies, or are marketed that way, I shiver. I mean, Muriel's Wedding wasn't bad, I just found it hard to assign it a genre. Same with Mental. I look at the characters in both of these films and think, Who ARE these people? I live in suburbia in Australia and I have never come across these sorts of characters. The only REAL characterisation in Mental for me was created by the actor who plays Trevor Blundell. I kept looking at him on the screen and wondering where this really very good Australian actor had sprung from; how come I'd never come across him before. Then, at the end, I realised that the answer was that he is American, doing a fine Aussie accent. I smiled at the Sound of Music references in Mental (must have cost a pretty penny) and I liked the real bits in the film. The rest of it - I could have taken, or left.
