Trailer

Danny (Rhys Ifans) is a gentle oddball with a habit of engaging in disastrous experiments and expeditions. When Trudy (Justine Clarke), his ambitious lover, remarks condescendingly that he is one of society’s “little people,” he expresses his rage by tying industrial-weight, helium-filled balloons to his lawn chair in an effort to “elevate” himself. An accident and a storm later, he has been blown through the sky from his suburban dead-end life in Sydney into the remote, scenic town of Clarence.

He crashes into the backyard of traffic cop Glenda (Miranda Otto) who, on impulse, gives him a new identity as a visiting professor and becomes his host. Having gone to university, Glenda is something of an outcast within Clarence’s tight-knit community, but the gregarious Danny quickly forges a place for himself, seizing the opportunity to start afresh and drawing Glenda back into the small town’s fold.

Ifans (seen at last year’s Festival in Once Upon a Time in the Midlands), with his lanky Celtic charm, is delightful as Danny, shading the character’s generosity with moments of selfishness and taking good-natured deadpan to new heights. The eternally watchable Otto treats the couple’s growing attraction with refreshing intelligence, giving Glenda’s self-esteem and judgment as much consequence as her tender feelings.

The film’s scenes play out with gleeful unpredictability. The chemistry between the two charismatic leads sparkles with both lighthearted humour and profound, poignant sweetness. As each begins to uncover the strange and wonderful qualities obscured within the other, they meet rough spots as entertaining and hilarious as the relationship’s patches of sun. Director Jeff Balsmeyer tells his story with frothy wit, a spot-on sense of pacing and an eye for vivid, transporting images. The film’s love and ebullient respect for its unforgettable characters bears Danny Deckchair aloft and propels it in the most fantastic directions.

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