The Marriage of Figaro

This is a lighthearted take on a good guy who borders on being a loser and a moron, but who loves his kids and their mother, and does the right thing. The plot is sweet but not very tight, the characters pleasant but without deep motivation, and the humor direct and obvious, but not laugh-out-loud. A light hearted diversion safe for kids (except for needless profanity, but not one you will remember in the morning.

While the acting is passable, the story line is so contrived that it is almost painful to watch. Of course, the whole event is a parody of the opera, and considering that perhaps the writers put in such a weak and contrived story so as to mimic the kinds of story lines found in operas as well.

We were pleasantly surprised to find this film - of which we hadn't heard much - so good. It is funny all through and hilarious at times. Contrary to some low budget Australian films, all is understandable and well edited. You get to like most of the characters especially the main character, Figaro, a well- meaning bikie (but perhaps not the mother!) and the music accompanies the action perfectly. It is filmed in various locations in the suburbs of Adelaide. We had just seen "Beautiful Kate" and "Charlie and Boots" and much prefer "The Marriage of Figaro". Hopefully it will be screened in more than 2 cinemas in Adelaide and you'll get a chance to see it. Highly recommended.

Not a great film but a consistently good production and lots of laughs/chuckles throughout. Yes it's a low-budget movie, but I see many Hollywood mega-dollar productions with horrible scripts and results, the results here are A+. A good all-round production so my congratulations to the writers, actors, production staff and financiers - a job well done by all. Australia needs lots of productions like this. Hollywood would add 100 instances of bad language, 4 or 5 nude shots and some sex scenes but could not improve on what has been achieved in South Australia. You will not see many recognisable faces in the cast but if they produce something like this every year they all get my vote. I hope their distributor goes for more outlets and get a reasonable distribution when DVD time comes. The base for any movie is a good script not Hollywood mega-stars this movie has everything you could want except the mega-stars. I cannot recommend this too highly go and see it. Oops I forgot the excellent soundtrack, well done to the orchestra.

Fences of rusted corrugated iron, dead lawn, overgrown gardens, decaying palm trees... is this film trying to portray the poverty of Adelaide or is it just really this ugly and low class? As an Australian (from Melbourne), who has lived in the US for over a decade, I'm tired of seeing my former home country portrayed so terribly trashy and unattractive in film (Animal Kingdom?), but at the same time I feel the suburbs and cities themselves, particularly those portrayed in this film, are need of some dire landscaping. Or are they trying to paint the landscape as a backdrop for the plot?

However, the aesthetics of this film are not essential to a good film and aside from the way it looks, The Marriage of Figaro was certainly still not a good film. It's still poorly made, with some weak performances, and terrible editing. Nothing really redeemed this.

Don't bother with this one... it only re-enforces that crone-worthy "ocker" Aussie-ness that needs to become a part of our very distant history and stay there.