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Canberra Today 17°/23° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: “Any Questions For Ben?” (MA) ****

FILM maker Stefan Eliiott, whose recently-released “A Few Best Men” needs all the spruiking it can get, recently told TV cameras that mainstream Australian comedy was in resurgence.

Resurgence is “Any Questions for Ben?” which made me laugh joyously and immoderately by its clever screenplay satirising hedonistic Me First young adults in whom behavioural brashness seldom shows intellectual justification.

Since dropping out of university, Ben (Josh Lawson), approaching his 28th birthday, hasn’t had a relationship lasting more than three months nor held a job or lived in the same apartment longer than six months. A party animal, ready for any new experience, for any new woman, working in brand development – from vodka to sportswear – his volubility is glib, limited in scope and manifestly ill-informed beyond his own activities.

At university Ben was too shy to approach Alex (Rachel Taylor), now a UN lawyer working in the Middle East, coming home from time to time.  Resolving the obvious pitfalls confronting the pair from getting it on seriously is at the film’s core.

We know where we expect them to go. Sometimes we even hope they might avoid the predictable outcome.
Self-assured, respectful of viewers’ intelligence, the screenplay by director Rob Sitch and his Working Dog Films colleagues Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner deftly dissects people and relationships.

A top cast of Australian actors delivers credible characters making us laugh by doing credible things. Standouts are Felicity Ward as Emilie who marries Ben’s flatmate Nick and lets Josh know his defects and Lachy Hulme as Ben’s restaurant-owning best mate Sam offering often crudely-expressed advice containing  a core of truth.

At Dendy, Hoyts, from February 9

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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