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The plot: A sexual coming of age comedy about a shy 20-year-old, his loudly loving comedienne mother, and his up front and accidentally funny girlfriend.
In short: Growing up is a funny old business.
Do cinemagoers need another coming-of-age story about a callow youth finding in the arms of a young hottie the strength to break the ties that bind?
Probably not. But as night follows day, cub directors continue to queue at studio doors in a bid to have tales with the consistency of damp Wettex about pubescent angst transformed into sweaty piles of festering celluloid.
And not just in Hollywood. Australian film funding bodies have long been soft touches for young directors peddling flaccid yarns about what happened when they, or someone they knew, was still wet behind the ears.
In Clubland, which takes its name from the Sydney leagues club circuit, the youth in question is the son of a cranky biddy, Jean Dwight (Brenda Blethyn), who takes shelter from the hard knocks that life has dealt behind a well stocked bar, an above-ground pool, old time rock 'n' roll and an occasional stand-up comedy act that could do duty as paint stripper.
One of her sons is Tim (Khan Chittenden), who at the age of 20 has never been kissed and peddles a removal van around the western suburbs while keeping a desperate eye out for a girlfriend.
Against the odds he finds one and, what's more, his Jill (Emma Booth) is a bit of a looker. She's blonde, sexy, squirmy and funny -- the sort of woman to strike fear into the heart of any mother who lives for her boy.
And that's what Clubland is mostly about, all that messy emotional business between needy mothers and breakaway sons with comedy simmering and pain lurking like a shark basking just below the surface.
Along the way the film takes time out to be a little sentimental about entertainers who never quite make the big time. Jean was a female Eric Morecambe or Ernie Wise until brought low by marriage to an Australian country and western star, who persuaded her to follow him to Australia then abandoned her to the suburbs with their boys, one suffering brain damage.
Frankie J. Holden plays the father who walked out and attempts to make a comeback with a self-funded tribute CD.
Most attention will probably focus on the deliciously hot-bod, sexual shenanigans between virgin Tim and full frontal Jill, but the picture belongs to big, bossy, blowsy, bitchy and brittle Blethyn.
This woman is a force of nature who doesn't so much snack on a role as swallow it whole.
So what if Blethyn reprises a few characters from past roles, especially Mari in Little Voice? If you're going to be a young bloke breaking free of the apron strings, then Brenda's Jean really gives you something to rebel against.
© Herald Sun
