Nude Tuesday a load of gibberish
Nude Tuesday (R16, 100 mins) Directed by Armagan Ballantyne Reviewed by James Croot ★★1⁄2
Julia (Jackie van Beek) and Bruno’s (Damon Herriman) marriage is in crisis. By day, she tries to make adult nappies alluring and he tries to sell tapware with names like Beyonce.
At night, both are simply too exhausted to make time for one another and Julia’s full-blown thrush has definitely put a damper on her libido.
Even their kids have noticed their strained relations, and when Bruno flips out in the supermarket while trying to find ingredients for a ‘‘sexy supper’’ on their wedding anniversary – albeit one attended by their respective parents – it seems like something has to change.
Thankfully, Bruno’s mother has a ready-made solution, gifting the pair places at the Wonderla couples retreat. Under the watchful eye of acclaimed guru, author of The Toothy Vulva and the recording artist behind The Weeping Jester, Bjorn Rasmussen, they’re set to undergo three days of intensive intimacy seminars, healing workshops and therapies, culminating in a ‘‘freeing’’ mountaintop trek.
However, the pair quickly find themselves more than just out of their comfort zone, especially when Bjorn takes a shine to Julia and Bruno earns his early wrath, mainly due to a toast violation.
Will their temporary A-frame home and companion goat be the making, or breaking, of their somewhat fragile relationship?
After the easy laughs of van Beek’s crowd-pleasing 2018 hit The Breaker Upperers, this feels like a far more challenging watch.
A strange cross between a Scandinavian sex comedy, Hercules Returns, Eyes Wide Shut, Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots and Eric Sykes’ classic short Rhubarb Rhubarb, the decision to tell the story in subtitled gibberish delivers mixed results.
British comedian Julia Davis’ ‘‘translations’’ from the original vaguely Scandinavian sounding language of Zobftanlik (one that sounds suspiciously like someone reading an Ikea catalogue) often result in some hilariously frank and ‘‘open’’ dialogue (there are allegedly other takes with interpretations by Malaysian comedian Ronny Chieng and Australian Celia Pacquola), but after a while the joke wears a little thin and you begin to wonder how this might play to viewers in Norway or Sweden.
‘‘Localised’’ versions of Sea of Love, Islands in the Stream and Talking Heads’ Road to Nowhere definitely raise a laugh and, among the supporting cast, you’ll see quite a few familiar Kiwi comedy faces (and less-familiar body parts) before the credits roll.
But while van Beek is a charismatic and compelling screen presence and director Armagan
Ballantyne (The Strength of Water) deserves plenty of praise for her inventive camera angles, one can’t help but feel that Clement has done this guru schtick before and the whole retreat feels like an episode of Wellington Paranormal that didn’t quite make the cut.
I half expected Officer Minogue and Sergeant Maka to come and raid the cult.
The South Island’s Makarora mountain range certainly looks pretty and the cast appear to have had a lot of fun making this, but between the strange geography of the Hawaii adjacent island of Zobftan sporting alpine peaks, a predictable drug-taking scene and the surreal dead-panness of it all, I just couldn’t quite get into Nude Tuesday. It’s no Gary of the Pacific, but it’s no Kiwi comedy classic either.
Nude Tuesday is screening in cinemas.