May 13–20, 1999

movies

Keeper of the Castle

The king of Australian TV satire takes a different route in his affectionate comedy about a Down Under family.

by a.d. amorosi

Among Americans, Australians are always good for a few laughs. But when Australians mock themselves, the laughter turns to chortles. Barbies, "beeyahs," tchotchkes, middle-class existence in the middle of desert sands and marshlands—all have wryly been made sport of. But for the creative team behind The Castle, the self-deprecating laughs had to be drier than the sands of Coolaroo for it to work.

"Nobody in the film lets on they're being funny," says director/writer Rob Sitch (introducing himself as "George Lucas") on a car phone from New Jersey. He's on a U.S. promotional tour for the film, which ran to packed Australian houses for a year. "'Dry' is much appreciated where I come from."

Director/writer Sitch, 36, and writers Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro and Jane Kennedy have created in The Castle a loving portrait of a content man, tow-truck driver Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton), whose family is threatened with the loss of their wonderfully tacky home.

Sitch, Kennedy, Gleisner and Cilauro have been teamed since college as The D Generation, a popular satirical troupe not unlike the SCTV crew. This quartet came up with immensely popular Aussie TV hits like the Larry Sanders-esque Frontline and The Late Show. Rather than go for the biting satire that made them popular, the team opted instead for sentiment.

"Comedy's a dry argument when it's always at the expense of somebody or something," says Sitch. "If you don't love your subject matter—like those who write, say, The Simpsons—the script comes up cold."

Writing a script about families like their own allowed the team to stray from sarcasm.

"You're never mean when you're talking about an uncle or your father," says Sitch, who swears Caton's Kerrigan is an exact replica of his own dad, a suburban-dwelling, self-made bus owner uninterested in money. The family The Castle's creators have forged—bad haircuts, flannels, cheap sportswear and all—is so emotionally detailed in aspirations and present-tense joys that there's no ignorance in the bliss. Each bargain found, each meal prepared, becomes a wonder to the Kerrigans.

But it is Caton—a well-regarded Aussie TV actor in the '70s—who leads the pack, as acknowledged by Sitch.

"He was like the David Caruso of Australia—no one would touch him after television," says Sitch. But Caton revived his reputation with a richly drawn performance of a man who goes up against the system using only his belief in himself and those closest to him.

Writing in tag teams made Sitch the director by the old "short straw" method.

"The art side of directing's not hard," laughs Sitch of his deliberately spare, nonlyrical, "postcard" filming style. "It's just having to answer the questions of 50 people all the time."

The team produced and backed their own film—after meeting with scads of big Aussie producers—because they wanted laughs and independence.

"Everybody else's ideas, and there were plenty, were no fun."

Sitch and his cohorts went to Australian film unions, found the very cheapest way to make a movie (low film ratio, few days shooting, deferred pay, two takes per shot) and did it from the vantage point of Kerrigan's son—nothing cute, very literal.

"We took out all production values to make it believable as a kid's tale. The only concession we made to luxury," says Sitch, "was to go to a restaurant supply wholesaler to lease an espresso/cappuccino maker, got an intern to run it and gave the crew great coffee. And they thought it was the best coffee ever."

Since The Castle's Australian distributors doubted the film would appeal to American tastes, Sitch is most surprised that indie giant Miramax, Robert Redford's Sundance committee, its rabid filmgoers and U.S. test audiences understood and loved the movie last year.

"What everyone missed is that it's such a simple story. Redford mentioned that. We went to Redford's ranch for a screening and he wouldn't leave us alone," jokes Sitch. "I had to tell him to sit down and eat."