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DO you have Overprotective Mom Syndrome? Victims of OMS suffer irritability, shyness, inability to breathe and a sealed state of youthful freshness. In the heartfelt Australian coming-of-age story Introducing the Dwights, the college-age Tim is infected with the still rarer strain OMS-BB, a freakish mutation in which said mother is Brenda Blethyn.
Blethyn plays Jean, who is by day a cook and by night an unspeakably bad variety-show "entertainer" who delivers a bawdy stand-up act ("Good evening, ladies and genitalia!") to silver-haired audience members trying to squeeze in one last show before their date with the embalmer.
Jean's aggressive love for her son Tim and his cheerful brother Mark, who has been brain-damaged since birth because (heavy symbolism alert) his mother's cord was wrapped around his neck, is squeezing the life out of the boys. Blethyn eventually does the same thing to the movie, which has the sweet-and-sour honesty of a memoir.
© New York Post
