Prompted by Jason Di Rosso's interview with director/animator Adam Elliot. Over a few nights due to a failure to grip, much like his earlier Mary and Max (2009) and Harvie Krumpet (2003). Again the claymation is great, as is the voice cast. On the other hand there are too many cliches (who hasn't heard the one about the bus driver who dies on the job?) and so many frames are overstuffed and briefly held that I did not know what to look at; I paused it often to read the titles of books and so forth. The story itself is mostly a bummer with an undertow of unearnt redemption: life as one damn thing after another. The explicit invocation of norms and stereotypes felt lazy to me. What's with the religious nutters in W.A. anyway? And swingers in Canberra...
Peter Bradshaw: four stars of five. Yes, The Two Ronnies was huge in Australia.
