INTRODUCING THE DWIGHTS - DVD review

It would appear that the producers of "Introducing the Dwights" were looking to make another quirky indie comedy along the lines of "The Full Monty" or "Kinky Boots." Unfortunately, this 2007 Australian import does little more than disappoint its audience with annoying characters and stereotypical situations.

From director Cherie Nowlan ("The Wedding Party") and TV writer Keith Thompson, and originally titled "Clubland," the movie found few fans in America, where it saw only a limited release. Once one sees the film, one can understand why Warner Independent Pictures pulled the plug early. You see, it's not really a "comedy" at all but, rather, a so-called "slice-of-life" tale almost equally divided between a mother's depression and a son's coming of age. But since neither the director nor the writer seems to have known exactly whose story they were telling, the mother's or the son's, the result is something of a helter-skelter grab bag.

The mom is Jean Dwight (Brenda Blethyn), an aging stage comic whose act consists of playing a more abrasive Phyllis Diller, an angry housewife. Jean cannot understand why the act isn't more popular, blaming her ex-husband for her downfall, and she now makes ends meet working in a canteen, tutoring young entertainers in her house, and taking to the boards once or twice a week at a local nightclub.

Her son, Tim (Khan Chittenden), is in his early twenties and works for a moving-van company. He's shy, somewhat inarticulate, and inexperienced with women, making his romance with a new girlfriend, Jill (Emma Booth), awkwardly sweet and touching. Which is more than I can say for anything else in the picture.

Tim also has a mentally challenged brother, Mark (Richard Wilson), who, according to Tim, "was brain damaged at birth." However, Mark seems smarter than anyone else in the movie, and he's the most reasonable of anybody. Maybe that tells you something about the other characters, or maybe it's supposed to be part of a symbolic message. I dunno.

Tim's father, John Maitland (Frankie J. Holden), divorced from his mom, is a part-time country singer and a full-time security guard. Tim's mom blames him for destroying her career by dragging her to Australia when she could have been a success in England. The father has the best line in the movie when he tells his son, "There is no problem so grave that a heartfelt apology can't resolve, even when you've got no idea what you've done wrong."

The only other characters of interest are Kelly (Katie Wall), Jill's witless roommate; Ronnie Stubbs (Philip Quast), a big-time entertainer; Lana (Rebecca Gibney), one of Jean's friends; and Shane (Russell Dykstra), a business associate. None of them are important to the story except to add needed color, variety, and maybe a little padding, and all of them come off as practically nonentities.

The two simultaneous stories involve the mother Jean's attempt at a comeback in the entertainment world and the son Tim's attempt to leave home and live with his new girlfriend. To say that the two stories do not exactly mesh smoothly would be an understatement. They seem like they belong in different movies.

Despite the boy's story, Jean is central character, and she's mostly a pain. She's a pain to herself, a pain to others around her, and pain to watch. She's so grasping and demanding, she won't let Tim out of her sight for a moment. She's selfish, thinking more of her career than of her sons, yet she needs them to comfort her constantly. Although none of these are uncommon behaviors in real life, the film offers nothing that is fresh or new to say about them. The whole thing seems pretty humdrum and routine.

When "Introducing the Dwights" can't manage the warmhearted smile it's looking for, it goes after maudlin sentimentality or outright agony. For example, the disabled son serves little purpose except to elicit our sympathy, yet, as I say, he's the most appealing character in the story. Moreover, it's hard to understand what attraction the two young people see in one another beyond sex, of which there is plenty; there is little chemistry between them and little for the audience to enjoy. And, worse, it's hard to say why anyone would find the mother's stage act funny or her offstage life engaging.

As the movie wears on, the mother becomes ever more irritating to everyone around her and to the viewer. She's really quite horrible, actually, which hardly makes for an attractive picture.

Video:
Warner Bros. present the film in two screen formats on opposite sides of the disc, one in the movie's original 1.85:1 ratio widescreen and the other in a 1.33:1 ratio full-screen. The full-screen is a misnomer, of course, as about a third of the televisions in use are 16x9 sets that the "full-screen" will not fully fill up. The full-screen here is actually a pan-and-scan rendering that eliminates about one-third of the screen image left and right, leaving black bars on the sides of widescreen sets.

I watched the film in widescreen, as God and Warner Bros. intended, and found it just fine. Colors are deep and bright; facial tones are a tad dark; detailing and delineation are on a par with most standard-definition releases, meaning a little soft and fuzzy; and there is a hint of fine print grain in evidence, which sometimes makes the picture look a touch gritty and rough.

Audio:
There is a pleasant ambient bloom on the music and audience effects in this Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Otherwise, things are pretty ordinary, too: a wide front-channel stereo spread, a clear, clean midrange, and a well-balanced if somewhat limited frequency response. The movie makes no serious demands on the audio, and the audio responds in kind.

Extras:
Basically, there are no extras, unless you count the fact that the disc offers two screen formats. Beyond that, there are several trailers at start-up only for other WB releases; twenty-five scene selections; English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles, with English captions for the hearing impaired.

Parting Shots:
The question about the movie is just how entertaining you'll find a clinging mother who feels life has passed her by and an introverted son who wants to escape but isn't sure how. The keep case describes it as an "endearing comic gem." I would describe it as a joyless melodrama. It's always possible that the movie is somewhere in between, but, if so, I leave it to you to find it.