SWEDE CAROLINE

Stars: Jo Hartley, Richard Lumsden, Celyn Jones, Ray Fearon, Fay Ripley, Alice Lowe, Rebekah Murrell and Aisling Bea.
Writers: Brook Driver.
Director: Finn Bruce, Brook Driver.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

The world of Big Vegetable Competitions is a dirty business if the true-crime doco send-up Swede Caroline is anywhere near the truth (and if it’s not, it sure feels like it is). Targeting British eccentricity is low hanging fruit for any satirist worth their weight in compost, but injecting humanity and warmth into the inherent daftness of men and women dedicated to maximising marrow growth is just one of the many virtues this fun, feel-good charmer offers.

In a delightfully low-key but humanely hilarious lead performance, Jo Hartley stars as Caroline, the marrow grower with the magic touch who finds herself at the centre of ‘Marrow-gate’ - a controversial turn of events that sees her disqualified from the 2019 competition. This sets in motion a series of sinister coincidences and strange circumstances that ultimately reveal the small-town folk to be not at all the community-minded friends that Caroline and her clingy neighbour side-kick Willy (Celyn Jones) assumed.

On hand to capture all the increasingly ‘capital-C’ criminality and Caroline’s sleuthing prowess is documentarian Kirsty (Rebekah Murrell), whose unobtrusive camera style (and pretty incredible mic tech, if the coupling of wide shots and audio clarity are to be believed) bring out the personalities of the village. These include Caroline’s very shouty conspiracy theorist husband Paul (the terrific Richard Lumsden); the local private investigators Laurence (Ray Fearon) and Louise (Aisling Bea…swoon), whose legendary swingers party are not new to Caroline; and, softly-spoken Linda (Fay Ripley), who may know more than she’s letting on.

Co-creators Finn Bruce and Brook Driver expose the ugliness of unchecked ambition in the most satirically warmhearted way possible, acknowledging both the working class foibles of their heroine and the middle class sense of entitlement of their villains. But Bruce and Driver clearly have a fondness for their characters, unlike the similarly-themed Australian ‘classic’ The Castle, which was an ugly film that punched down upon its view of suburbia. Swede Caroline celebrates that which makes us feel good, even if it is an odd passion for giant gourds or monstrous melons, and its sense of sweetness will grow on you.