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Introducing the Dwights is a marvelous Australian family dramedy that occasionally creates the claustrophobic sensation of being trapped in quarreling hell. That's both a compliment and criticism of this flawed, but admirable, drama, which asks the audience to be patient with characters that one would logically run away from screaming.
Jean (Brenda Blethyn) is a mother of two still trying to keep her dream of comedic performance alive in local casinos, while holding her family together with a dreary day job in a cafeteria. Tim (Kahn Chittenden) is her eldest; a young man who has fallen in love with a high-maintenance girl named Jill (Emma Booth). Finding unexpected love puts a strain on Tim's relationship with both women in his life, revealing the caustic emotional limitations of his mother, and Jill's demands on him for an environment change that's long overdue.
Written by Keith Thompson, Dwights is your average, formulaic coming-of-age, overbearing-mother experience, complete with a skittish deflowering, hateful drunken episodes, and the healing power of classic rock. It's to the writer's credit that he is able to shape the characters as real as he does.
© HBS Entertainment, Inc.
