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MOVIE: The Flip Side STARRING: Eddie Izzard, Emily Taheny, Vanessa Guide, Luke McKenzie.

RATING: M REVIEWER: Leigh Paatsch

WITH The Flip Side, we are treated to a broken Australian rom-com where the rom just never happens.

As for the com, it keeps entering and leaving the room like a drunk who has lost some keys. It doesn’t stick around for long, but you do notice when it’s there.

British actor Eddie Izzard (miscast to the max) plays Henry, a reputedly famous movie star who lands in Adelaide to reignite an old flame with cash-strapped caterer Ronnie (Emily Taheny).

Believing these two were ever a couple is like being asked to roller-skate in reverse downhill: you just don’t wanna do it because (a) you know it doesn’t look right; and (b) it cannot end well.

This indeed dooms The Flip Side from the get-go, but all is not totally lost.

The two unknowns playing the leads’ other halves – Australian Luke McKenzie as an oblivious aspiring novelist and French up-and-comer Vanessa Guide as an all-too-aware agent – do their darnedest to get some air back into the tyres of this thing before everything goes flat.

This is one of those movies where repeated sightings of a boomerang have you bracing yourself for the scene where someone finally throws it, only to suffer sudden damage to the cranium shortly thereafter.

When it does finally occur, the hilarity lands with all the impact of spilt coffee on a new white shirt.

There are some who feel a little localised charity for The Flip Side and file it away as a nice try, but it is impossible to recommend with any honesty when the wonderful Crazy Rich Asians covers every base missed here.