He crash lands in the yard of Glenda (Miranda Otto), a meter maid only moderately less attractive than Trudy. Glenda decides she likes Danny, he decides to stay, and a romance gradually heats up between them. Meanwhile, Danny lands a job as manager of the Parliament election campaign of local businessman Jim Craig.
How I felt about it. I was gratified that this movie could be understood without subtitles. I once watched the first Mad Max movie, and probably missed half the dialogue. But here, the dialogue is easily understood.
Australia is half the world away from the United States, and although both nations share a common heritage with England, there are significant cultural differences. They are less inhibited in Australia. If you feel something, express it. If you want to do something, do it. It is like Australians are always operating on two or three beers. On the other hand, from the Australian perspective, Americans act like they've got a pole up their you-know-what. Perhaps the compromise is to be able to express yourself openly without going so far as to do something stupid. More on this topic shortly.
Danny Deckchair is a romantic comedy that, despite its genre, manages to have more appeal to men than to women. It achieves this by making the man the center of the story, and giving him working class attributes.
But there's more going on than just that. The film raises several interesting ideas:
What happens when a man moves from one environment into another, with nothing more than the shirt on his back?
Should you follow your dreams, or accept life as it presents itself?
What makes a man remarkable?
The problem is, the "answer" the film provides is the one that we want to hear: crazy risks are rewarded. They are, after all, cinematic. It would be more accurate to state that education is rewarded, and crazy risks are too often punished. Suggesting a pancake breakfast is one thing. But if you walk away from your job to go camping with your girlfriend, you promptly run out of money and your relationship craters. If you teach your girlfriend how to drive a motorcycle by covering her eyes with your hands while traversing a windy hillside road, you become one of those little white crosses you see in the roadside grass. If you experiment with helium balloons on a scrolling="no" frameborder="0"