Mental – review

3 / 5 stars
Muriel's Wedding director and star PJ Hogan and Toni Collette reunite for this near-the knuckle Australian black comedy

Mental is a knockabout black comedy from Australia that starts off exhilaratingly mad and funny, then progressively loses its edge. It brings director PJ Hogan back together with Toni Collette for the first time since Muriel's Wedding in 1994.

Rebecca Gibney plays Shirley, a neglected suburban wife and mother who is on the verge of a breakdown, unable to think about anything but The Sound of Music, the opening of which is hilariously recreated in her garden. Her five daughters are also neurotically obsessed with their own lack of mental health. Her philandering husband Barry (Anthony LaPaglia) hires a motormouth badass called Shaz (Collette) to be their nanny, and she shakes up these non-Von Trapps.

Opinion will divide as to whether there is offence to be taken here on the subject of mental health. My opinion is no, but as the saccharine taste builds up faintly towards the end, it's a close-run thing. It's always a pleasure to see Collette, a performer who always cranks up the energy, and yet here, as so often, she gives the impression of a ferocious screen intelligence somehow not being used to the full.