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.

SOUTH AFRICAN SPOOK HUNTER

Stars: Matt van Niftrik, Taryn Kay, Ashley Winter, Ella Kean, Paul Dewdney, Daniel Brace, Valentine Landeg, Daniel Rands and Lamin Tamba.
Writers/directors: Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray and Daniel Rands.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

Peter Venkman-meets-David Brent in Matty Vans, the plumber/spirit sleuth whose ignominious misadventures fighting paranormal activity in middle-class London are captured in the occasionally riotous mock-doc, South African Spook Hunter. Collaborators Kathryn MacCorgarry Gray and Daniel Rands nail the comic timing and display the genre knowledge needed to pull off this kind of pitch-perfect takedown of those naff supernatural ‘reality’ shows. 

Likable far beyond what any South African millennial ginger deserves to be, Vans is the creation of actor/comic Matt van Niftrik, who works with MacCorgarry’s and Rand’s structured narrative then improvises the hell out of the setting and dialogue. An everyman nobody who struggles in vain to capture evidence of the afterlife (“I thought it was a spirit life light, but it was a girl whose friend was taking a wee behind a tree.”), Matty Vans is a great comic creation; van Niftrik plays both big and small for the laughs, which come unexpectedly and often.

Vans rents a doco crew - cameraman Jono (co-director Rands) and soundman Gary (Valentine Landeg) - who are growing weary of following his enthusiastic but dead-end dives into the netherworld. When suburban housewife Caroline Damon-Murray (Taryn Kay) contacts him with images of possible poltergeist intrusion impacting daughters Paige (Ella Kean) and Amber (Ashley Winter), Matty senses he is onto the case of his wannabe career. Finally, he’ll be spoken of in the same sentence as his media hero, psychic smoothie and the host of ‘Enter Gomorrah’, Danny Gomorrah (Daniel Brace).

Things start to go awry after Vans and his crew move into the Damon-Murray residence. All evidence points to a hoax, with Vans the last to cotton on, but his interactions with the family are ceaselessly funny and his to-camera moments reveal the well-intentioned ambition and integrity in his heart. The twist isn’t that hard to see coming, but the feel-good factor remains high and those seeking a smattering of chills will be satisfied.

Supporting van Niftrik’s character work are MacCorgarry and Rands skill at creating mirth in the detail; their hero’s obsession with The Bourne Identity pays off with a big giggle, and his constant use of the insult ‘worm…’ (a South African colloquialism, we guess) proves exponentially hilarious.

Delivering a mockumentary so consistently funny is no easy feat; it’s why the films of Christopher Guest (Best in Show, 2000; A Mighty Wind, 2003) are spoken of so highly. With its engaging comic lead and a directing team finding a rich vein of the ridiculous to satirise, South African Spook Hunter spinal-taps the supernatural with a gleeful giddiness.