Plot Summary
From the director of Muriel’s Wedding, PJ Hogan and star Toni Collette, reunite in an original comedy with heart. The Moochmore girls are certain they all suffer from some kind of undiagnosed mental illness - because if they’re not crazy then they’re just unpopular. Their mother Shirley (Rebecca Gibney) - unable to cope with her demanding daughters and unsupported by her philandering politician husband, Barry (Anthony LaPaglia) - suffers a nervous breakdown. After Barry commits his wife to a mental hospital (telling his constituents that “she’s on holiday”) he finds himself alone with 5 teenage girls he barely knows. Desperate, he impulsively picks up a hitchhiker named Shaz (Collette) and installs her in his home as nanny to his daughters.
Credits
Director
Screenwriter
Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
40%- Reviews Counted: 50
- Fresh: 20
- Rotten: 30
- Average Rating: 5.5/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: "Mental" wildly overplays the kookiness and quirk.
Rotten: Much of the humor is driven by a savage near-hatred of everything suburban, which frequently undermines its own effectiveness, and poses a barrier to auds engaging emotionally with the central character.
Rotten: Writer-director P.J. Hogan may have based "Mental" on an actual incident from his childhood, but the crazy quilt of a movie that resulted feels anything but real.
Fresh: A cuckoo comedy that puts the fun in dysfunctional.
Customer Reviews
Great fun with a serious edge
If you loved Muriel's Wedding, you'll love this!!! Toni Colette is brilliant!!! She always brings such fabulous attitude and feistiness to her characters and Shaz is no different.
Great fun with a serious edge to it - Mental is very good and well worth a watch.
Also good to see both Anthony and Liev pulling off very impressive Aussie accents :)
Brilliant movie
Toni Collette is so unique and hilarious as this out of the box character. So refreshing to watch something totally out of the box as far as comedy. Set in Australia, I loved all the nuances and authenticity of the unafraid Australian characters.
Collette
Toni Collette turns in a brilliant performance. Hogan and she clearly enjoy opening up the doors to characters we don't normally get to live with on screen. This a well made film, enjoyable and interesting. It relishes in the quirky, almost surrealness everyday life surrounds us with if we take just a moment to notice. Each of the girls, Liev Schreiber and Anthony LaPaglia and both the excellent Rebecca Gibney and Caroline Goodall round out an elegant cast. I would recommend to anybody who enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook and Muriel's Wedding.
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