Mental [HD]

Tell your problems to whats-her-name!
It's a story too weird to be true -- after his wife is committed to a mental hospital, a neglectful politician hires a hitchhiker to care for his kids.

But it actually was true, and it happened to the family of Australian director P. J. Hogan when he was a child. Years later, he sculpted this too-weird-even-for-sitcoms story into a delightfully peculiar, over-the-top comedy with potty humor, musical numbers and the occasional pickled shark. But it has a bittersweet core about loss, disappointment and mental illness.

Sweet Shirley Moochmoore (Rebecca Gibney) is treated badly by everybody -- her cheating, neglectful husband Barry (Anthony Lapaglia), her snobby neighbor Nancy (Kerry Fox), her doll-obsessed sister Doris (Caroline Goodall) and even the girls at a local coffee shop. So she eventually has a nervous breakdown, and ends up in a mental institution.

Barry demands that his five daughters claim she's "on holiday in Wollongong," mainly because he's...

Absolutely Brilliant!
This movie has it all! Humour, heart,compassion, life lessons and on and on. Toni Colette gives an outstanding performance along with her co-stars.
It had me laughing and crying all at the same time. It will be one I will watch over and over again. Definitely one to buy..a keeper. Highly recommended!

SHE'S NOT HEAVY, SHE'S YOUR SISTER
Shirley (Rebecca Gibney) and her family of girls all think they are crazy. They self-diagnose from the Internet. Barry, their absentee father (Anthony LaPaglia), is also the mayor of the town. He decides to solve the issue by having Shirley committed and provides for the girls by putting Shaz (Toni Collette) in charge of them. He picked her up hitch hiking.

Shaz has her own way of doing things and explains that all of Australia is crazy. Her antics have an ulterior motive which we discover late in the film. Shaz has a refreshing brutal honesty to her approach.

The movie is a bit long. The first hour is zany and will have you laughing out loud. The film then shifts into a more serious mode, imitating a dark comedy up to the heart warming ending that brings it home from the opening. Good one P.J. Hogan.

The film is a must for quirky indie lovers.

Parental Guide: F-bomb, groping, brief nudity (Lily Sullivan, Sam Clark-rear)

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