Introducing the Dwights.

"Introducing the Dwights, directed by Cherie Nowlan from a script by Keith Thompson, is a funny-sad, icky-sweet comedy of family dysfunction - a genre that seems to flourish in Australia, this film's country of origin," writes AO Scott in the New York Times.

"Shrieking like a banshee has unfortunately become Brenda Blethyn's stock in trade ever since her remarkable breakout performance in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies over 10 years ago," writes Jason Clark at Slant. "And now those who love to watch her boozily wobble in and out of rooms have ample opportunity to do so in this shrill, TV-lite Aussie picture (called Clubland in previous showings—a better-matched title) that plays like a cinematic version of unstable menopause."

Updated through 7/7.

"As in her first feature (known alternately as Thank God He Met Lizzie and The Wedding Party), Nowlan gears the audience up for silly, obnoxious antics only to slowly strip away the superficially 'fun' exterior to reveal a darker core," writes Kristi Mitsuda for indieWIRE. "But unlike that debut, which somehow straggles its way towards an affectively disillusioning conclusion on relationships (mostly due to its piercing description of the inner world of a couple), her latest candied vision with a cynical center lacks emotional resonance."

"With its broad, toothless humor and ham-fisted fits of melodrama, this sitcom-grade embarrassment aims to dethrone Muriel's Wedding as the quirky Aussie feel-gooder of all time, except it hurts too much to watch," writes Aaron Hillis in the Voice.

For Filmmaker, Nick Dawson talks with Nowlan "about why Brenda Blethyn is 'a freak,' not knowing Frances O'Connor from a bar of soap, and filming herself asleep in bed at night."

Online listening tip. Nobuhiro Hosoki talks with Nowlan and Blethyn.

Update: "For all its cathartic kicking and screaming (and drinking and blubbering), there's not much of a story here, just a lot of conventional wisdom about growing up and growing older, that we've all seen and heard before," writes Cullen Gallagher in the L Magazine.

Updates, 7/5: In the Los Angeles Times, Jessica Gelt gets 60 seconds with Blethyn.

Blethyn is a guest on the Leonard Lopate Show.

"It's sweet, quirky, sincere, and provides a perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of those big-budgeted extravaganzas currently invading your local theater," finds Cinematical's Erik Davis.

Updates, 7/7: Scott Tobias at the AV Club: "The few laughs are stifled by awkwardness, and the psychodrama is undermined by the fact that these characters are supposed to be loveably dysfunctional, not a disturbing mass of hard boozing, emotional dependency, and Oedipal anxiety."

ST VanAirdale talks with Blethyn.

Posted by dwhudson at July 4, 2007 3:44 AM