Con’s Score: 2.5 Big Sticks
In a little 17th century town caked Seaside, there’s a marionette show called Punch and Judy that all the locals go to. Pity they don’t like to pay. It’s the sort of town where they like a stoning, a witch burning and a hanging to mix it up.
But Punch (Damon Harriman) has dreams of being discovered one day, and playing in ‘the big smoke’. Luckily, he has Judy (Mia Wasikowska) to look after their baby and carry the show, as Punch likes a dram of whiskey. He’s pretty hopeless at everything else, such as chopping wood, cooking sausages or looking after the baby. When Judy gives him this task, things go a little pickled pear shaped… and who’d have thought a baby could fly!
Writer-director Murray Faulkes has taken the Punch and Judy legend, and turned on it’s dark head. After all, Punch and Judy were already the most abusive couple on a stage, and she’s directed this like a very grim Grimm Brothers fairy tale.
You’ll need to recall the original Punch and Judy to embrace this film, as most of the characters are based on it – the long suffering wife, the poor baby, who is lost, the officious policeman, the dog, the sausages, Pretty Polly (his mistress) and a crocodile are all here, but in a more realistic setting.
In some ways it works as it satirises the old and original norms, which in today’s world are coming back to haunt us. (Notice any parallels between burning witches and the abuse of those female Democrats, called The Squad in the US?)
If you’re oblivious to this, unfortunately, the movie doesn’t quite work, as an abusive alcoholic isn’t that funny. It is meant to be darkly funny, but the comedy doesn’t quite come through. The darkness and drama do.
Maybe it’s because Faulkes has cast a fine dramatic actress in Wasikowska, and a talented theatrical actor in Harriman. They’re good, but restrained. There aren’t enough sharp lines in the script, the grotesquely funny characters aren’t colourful or comic enough to be funny, and when slapstick is too realistic, it becomes violence.
It is well shot, surprisingly in Victoria, and the sets and costuming is top class. The casting is also very good. When Judy joins the misfits, you’ll notice they look like outcasts; not models dressed in rags.
It does improve when it sticks to drama and becomes a revenge tale, and the ending is satisfying. I noted some ‘Punches’ as producers and writers, so I wonder who is as actually involved and whether four writers have muddied the broth. Even a black comedy needs more than one big laugh.
Con Nats – On The Screen
