Movie Log: Kenny

Kenny looks like a high concept movie at first glance: an Australian mockumentary about the travails of a man who works for a company that provides temporary toilets for "corporate functions." (Yes, those kind of toilets -- the ones that are housed in large plastic enclosures, come on the back of a truck, and need to be pumped out daily.) But Kenny is vastly more honest and real than I expected; it is a comedy -- and a very funny one, though I recommend non-Australians turn on the closed captions so as not to miss half the dialogue and all of the humor -- but it's the kind of comedy based on reality rather than contrived situations.

It's got a clear-eyed but not entirely serious view of life that I tend to credit as a particularly Australian attitude; when you live on a desert continent that has a thousand ways to kill you (from spiders to snakes to sharks to just the weather), you tend not to take yourself too seriously. Whatever the reason for it -- I'm sure there are stuck-up, self-important Australians out there, even if I'd prefer to avoid learning about them -- Kenny is full of that great Aussie this-is-what-you've-gotta-do attitude, starting with Shane Jacobson in the title role. (And that's good, because this is shot documentary-style; so Jacobson is at the center of nearly every shot, and close to half of the movie is him talking directly to the camera as he goes about his life.)

I can't remember all of the great things Kenny says -- some of which are standard Aussie slang, some of which are the jargon of his trade, and some of which are surely specific to this character -- but Kenny is funny several times a minute...unless you're the kind of stuck-up pisser who can't take a potty joke, in which case you'll want to go back to Masterpiece Theatre. But if you, like me, take joy in the fact that Kenny calls those little napkin-like separate bit of toilet paper "poo tickets," then you'll definitely enjoy this movie. The Wife and I both loved it.
----------------
Listening to: The Long Blondes - Too Clever By Half
via FoxyTunes