A David Stratton Marvellous Movie (#75). Another of Ben Mendelsohn's breakout movies from 1990; like The Big Steal and unlike Quigley Down Under, this makes it seem that he was at risk of becoming typecast as a mechanic or petrolhead.
Dennis Coard returns to Adelaide from his insurance job in Melbourne to visit his elder brother Frankie J. Holden's family who run a traditional service station in Mitchell Park (a suburb of Adelaide). I get the impression they live in Grange, near the beach. The vibe is that you can take the boy out of the overgrown country town/state capital but you've got little hope of repopulating it if this is all that's on offer. A lot is said but not enough is shown, especially about the hot rod scene of the 1970s/1980s. There is nothing much of a plot.
Mendelsohn's apprentice-mechanic role is to show these old fogies that the young can still get plenty bored and self-destructive; they'll even have kids just for something to do. Even the drive-in leads to romantic ruts! — that thread of the thin narrative is a drag and it isn't resolved whether Coard will find a new squeeze in his old town. The dog's kennel is a classic, made of car doors and a tarp.
The theme of coming home and finding it better than away is (of course) timeless; perhaps it is a central part of the Australian myth (cf Erskineville Kings and in a different sense Wake in Fright, Walkabout, etc.). The vintage lingo gives it a similar vibe to David Williamson's The Club: things were better when we were amateurs/young, when the pace of change was slower, before Australia was swept up on irresistible international currents. Why should we change/put effort in just to stand still/lose the essence of what we loved?
All the details at Ozmovies. I might be confused about the locations as apparently the service station used in this movie has morphed into the United at Henley Beach. Five stars each from Margaret and David!