December 5, 2024 • 7 mins
Resident film reviewer Ben O’Shea stops by to tell us all about the new Australian Christmas movie ‘How to Make Gravy’, based on Paul Kelly’s classic.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great the flick with.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Ben O'Shea Benno Shay, Good morning, Ben, Good morning guys. Yes,
people do love how to Make Gravy. It is an
amazing song. I love Paul Kelly. I love that song.
I just want to get that out there. I'm not
a Paul Kelly hater before we get into the review
of this movie. So this big screen adaptation of the
(00:22):
song which is coming to Binge. People can stream it
right now. Look, you might be thinking, is it possible
to make a good movie out of a song? And
the answer is probably not really. There's like the history
of this sort of thing is pretty patchy, to be honest.
There was a movie Across the Universe a few years
(00:44):
ago on the Beatles song of the same name that
was terrible. That was terrible. You go back to the eighties,
there was a made for TV movie called Copa Cabana
that actually a really starred that actually starred Barry Manilow.
I don't need to tell you about that. You can
you can draw your own. Yeah. But but there's also
been some good examples, like there was a movie The
(01:06):
Indian Runner, which was Sean Penn's first movie that he directed,
that was based on Bruce Springsteen's Highway Patrolman. That was
that was actually pretty good. And there was the horror
movie from the eighties, The Hitcher starring Ruger Howard, which
which was based on which was which was based on
Writers on the Storm. But I don't know that. Yeah, yeah,
(01:30):
and so either there's a killer. There's a fairly loose
connection memo, and I think this is the key, right, Like,
if you just are loosely inspired by the theme of
the song, I think, I think you've got a chance.
But if you're trying to do a literal interpretation, I
think that's where it comes unstuck. And that's where they've
(01:51):
gone wrong here. So Nick Waterman, in his debut feature
with his real life partner, the Aria winning singer Megan Washington,
Have a Dad, did Paul Kelly's song. But they've done
it so literally, like this is all you need to know.
At one point, there's a very slow, labored shot of
a gravy boat being passed around the table, and I
(02:16):
would say, I would say fifty percent of the film
is gravy related. Oh was. I was never convinced that
because the song is three minutes long, and I was,
I was never convinced that it was going to make
a hugely successful transition. Yeah, well, a big part, a
big part of the problem is if you actually read
the lyrics, which are incredible lyrics, but there's actually not
(02:39):
a lot of exposition. The only any lyric in the
film that hints to what has happened is when the
when the Joe character says, I really screwed up this time.
You don't but you don't know anything about what he
has done, why he is in jail, and as a result,
the film has kind of got to fill in the gaps,
(02:59):
and so the lyric in the song where it's like,
you know, I'll even miss Roger because there's no one
I want to fight in here. The film starts with
Joe played by Daniel Henshell from like the incredible but
disturbing Australian film Snowtown, very disturbing, so so he kind
of gets gets into a fight with his brother in
(03:19):
law Roger at a Christmas family get together and then
lands in jail and misses the next Christmas. That's basically
that's basically how the film is set up, and the
majority of the film is set in the prison and
sor sort of a prison drama, but it's the sort
of prison where, you know, some of the inmates are
capable of like pitch perfect singing, and they break out
(03:42):
into song yeah yeah, and you've got and no one
talks about that, and no one talks about no one
talks about the crimes that they committed, because that would
make it harder to see these criminals as lovable rascals. Yeah,
you know, Hugo Weaving is in the prison. He's like this,
we don't know what, we don't know why he's in there,
(04:04):
but he's sort of this older inmate who takes Joe
under his wing and realizes that he's struggling in prison
and says, you know what, why don't you come and
work in the prison kitchen. You can teach us about
your recipe for gravy. Gravy, you can make gravy, and
there's this there's at one point you sort of question,
hang on, did I not realize that gravy has magical properties?
(04:26):
Because they're all they're all standing around when Joe's making
gravy for the first time and they taste it and
you swear they've just been sipping from the Holy Grail
or something. They're like, oh, this is the most delicious
thing I've ever tasted. In my line, it's just bloody gravy.
Like you pretty much get the same result if you
crack a tin of grave looks powder, but.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Anyway I can get out of myself.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's pretty much, you know, like people, people who were
evil try the gravy and all of a sudden they
change their ways. No, it's magical, magical gravy. Who knew
that the recipe for gravy contains so much cheese? Yes, exactly.
But it's an all start, all star cast though. Damon
Damon Herriman plays Roger, You've got the great Kim Gindel,
(05:15):
Brenton Swaits plays Dan, which is you know, from the
start of the song is like, you know high Dan
is Joe, and so you've got you've got these amazing
actors and look it's okay, it's not it's not terrible.
It's just it's just a sort of film where one character,
like Joe's wife says to him at one point, You've
got to stop crying with your fists. Okay, right, So
(05:37):
which is you know, what is? What is? What? Even?
Is that? Like they should have spent more time working
on the more time working on the script, and left time. Gravy,
Gravy related, so many loves Gravy, mulvaney and this as well.
She's Brennan in the twelve isn't as well? He plays
(05:58):
she plays Joe's Joe's this star, Who's Who's the one
who's kind of married to Rogers?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, but and it's you know, the film is mostly
kind of focuses so hard on trying to make sure
that every name in the song. There's Dolly, there's Mary,
let's talk about Mary's boyfriend, you know. So there's a
lot of that going on. And I think the reality
is if you're going to if you're going to adapt
Paul Kelly song, personally, I would have picked to her
(06:25):
daughter backstory there, they got married early, they.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Never had no money, he got yeah, the whole story. Yeah,
it's a real tale of redemption as well, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Or you know, yeah, written down to her door.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, Ben, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, but to that's what Well, the big question is
how many tins of grave ox are you giving it? Well, look,
because it's nearly Christmas, I'm going to give it two
and a half Yeah, thank you, Ben, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, this project had been talked about for a long time.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, but it was it was always it seemed like,
sounds like a good idea at the time, but really
when it comes
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Down to it, Yeah, yeah, all right, lovely, Thank you Benny,
Thank you guys.
Great the flick with.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Ben O'Shea Benno Shay, Good morning, Ben, Good morning guys. Yes,
people do love how to Make Gravy. It is an
amazing song. I love Paul Kelly. I love that song.
I just want to get that out there. I'm not
a Paul Kelly hater before we get into the review
of this movie. So this big screen adaptation of the
(00:22):
song which is coming to Binge. People can stream it
right now. Look, you might be thinking, is it possible
to make a good movie out of a song? And
the answer is probably not really. There's like the history
of this sort of thing is pretty patchy, to be honest.
There was a movie Across the Universe a few years
(00:44):
ago on the Beatles song of the same name that
was terrible. That was terrible. You go back to the eighties,
there was a made for TV movie called Copa Cabana
that actually a really starred that actually starred Barry Manilow.
I don't need to tell you about that. You can
you can draw your own. Yeah. But but there's also
been some good examples, like there was a movie The
(01:06):
Indian Runner, which was Sean Penn's first movie that he directed,
that was based on Bruce Springsteen's Highway Patrolman. That was
that was actually pretty good. And there was the horror
movie from the eighties, The Hitcher starring Ruger Howard, which
which was based on which was which was based on
Writers on the Storm. But I don't know that. Yeah, yeah,
(01:30):
and so either there's a killer. There's a fairly loose
connection memo, and I think this is the key, right, Like,
if you just are loosely inspired by the theme of
the song, I think, I think you've got a chance.
But if you're trying to do a literal interpretation, I
think that's where it comes unstuck. And that's where they've
(01:51):
gone wrong here. So Nick Waterman, in his debut feature
with his real life partner, the Aria winning singer Megan Washington,
Have a Dad, did Paul Kelly's song. But they've done
it so literally, like this is all you need to know.
At one point, there's a very slow, labored shot of
a gravy boat being passed around the table, and I
(02:16):
would say, I would say fifty percent of the film
is gravy related. Oh was. I was never convinced that
because the song is three minutes long, and I was,
I was never convinced that it was going to make
a hugely successful transition. Yeah, well, a big part, a
big part of the problem is if you actually read
the lyrics, which are incredible lyrics, but there's actually not
(02:39):
a lot of exposition. The only any lyric in the
film that hints to what has happened is when the
when the Joe character says, I really screwed up this time.
You don't but you don't know anything about what he
has done, why he is in jail, and as a result,
the film has kind of got to fill in the gaps,
(02:59):
and so the lyric in the song where it's like,
you know, I'll even miss Roger because there's no one
I want to fight in here. The film starts with
Joe played by Daniel Henshell from like the incredible but
disturbing Australian film Snowtown, very disturbing, so so he kind
of gets gets into a fight with his brother in
(03:19):
law Roger at a Christmas family get together and then
lands in jail and misses the next Christmas. That's basically
that's basically how the film is set up, and the
majority of the film is set in the prison and
sor sort of a prison drama, but it's the sort
of prison where, you know, some of the inmates are
capable of like pitch perfect singing, and they break out
(03:42):
into song yeah yeah, and you've got and no one
talks about that, and no one talks about no one
talks about the crimes that they committed, because that would
make it harder to see these criminals as lovable rascals. Yeah,
you know, Hugo Weaving is in the prison. He's like this,
we don't know what, we don't know why he's in there,
(04:04):
but he's sort of this older inmate who takes Joe
under his wing and realizes that he's struggling in prison
and says, you know what, why don't you come and
work in the prison kitchen. You can teach us about
your recipe for gravy. Gravy, you can make gravy, and
there's this there's at one point you sort of question,
hang on, did I not realize that gravy has magical properties?
(04:26):
Because they're all they're all standing around when Joe's making
gravy for the first time and they taste it and
you swear they've just been sipping from the Holy Grail
or something. They're like, oh, this is the most delicious
thing I've ever tasted. In my line, it's just bloody gravy.
Like you pretty much get the same result if you
crack a tin of grave looks powder, but.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Anyway I can get out of myself.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's pretty much, you know, like people, people who were
evil try the gravy and all of a sudden they
change their ways. No, it's magical, magical gravy. Who knew
that the recipe for gravy contains so much cheese? Yes, exactly.
But it's an all start, all star cast though. Damon
Damon Herriman plays Roger, You've got the great Kim Gindel,
(05:15):
Brenton Swaits plays Dan, which is you know, from the
start of the song is like, you know high Dan
is Joe, and so you've got you've got these amazing
actors and look it's okay, it's not it's not terrible.
It's just it's just a sort of film where one character,
like Joe's wife says to him at one point, You've
got to stop crying with your fists. Okay, right, So
(05:37):
which is you know, what is? What is? What? Even?
Is that? Like they should have spent more time working
on the more time working on the script, and left time. Gravy,
Gravy related, so many loves Gravy, mulvaney and this as well.
She's Brennan in the twelve isn't as well? He plays
(05:58):
she plays Joe's Joe's this star, Who's Who's the one
who's kind of married to Rogers?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, but and it's you know, the film is mostly
kind of focuses so hard on trying to make sure
that every name in the song. There's Dolly, there's Mary,
let's talk about Mary's boyfriend, you know. So there's a
lot of that going on. And I think the reality
is if you're going to if you're going to adapt
Paul Kelly song, personally, I would have picked to her
(06:25):
daughter backstory there, they got married early, they.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Never had no money, he got yeah, the whole story. Yeah,
it's a real tale of redemption as well, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Or you know, yeah, written down to her door.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, Ben, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, but to that's what Well, the big question is
how many tins of grave ox are you giving it? Well, look,
because it's nearly Christmas, I'm going to give it two
and a half Yeah, thank you, Ben, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, this project had been talked about for a long time.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, but it was it was always it seemed like,
sounds like a good idea at the time, but really
when it comes
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Down to it, Yeah, yeah, all right, lovely, Thank you Benny,
Thank you guys.
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