OK, there are no user reviews yet, so let's toss in a hasty first.
The screening of "Nude Tuesday" last evening (10 June 2022) at the Sydney Film Festival was (apparently) the world premiere of this Australian / New Zealand movie - "the first screening with an audience", we were told - and it went down well with a full house.
Its unique content makes this a film strongly boosted by a live audience (probably a different experience if seen at home on a TV screen) because there's an element of the audience being in on the act. Many laughs come from the subtitled "translations" of the gibberish spoken by actors that obviously bear no relation to what was in their minds while shooting. They are, if unwittingly, in on the act too. As is the audience. It's all quite theatrical.
The style is something like what was introduced long ago with "The Naked Gun" and "Airplane" movie series, in which the film itself plays a role in the comedy - the film you are watching gets sent up while you're watching it (we'll get to a potential problem arising from this a bit later).
Gag dubs are a sub-genre, such as in the (Australian) tradition of "Bargearse", in which the 1970s police series "Bluey" was given new life with absurd dialogue. Originally the plan had been to dub soap "The Young Doctors" instead - an obvious choice, as this should top any list of crap productions deserving mockery (as done way back with "Let the blood run free").
Astonishingly, it was actually carbon-copied for NZ TV, and in the decades since has become a local "Kiwi" institution - but I digress.
"Nude Tuesday" bears no relation to such soapy drivel, having very capable acting and staging, but the gobbledegook "translation" is a big part of the appeal.
Not all dialogue is gobbledegook. The many, many, many repetitions of "OK" to wrap a scene or moment can be emotionally effective - a resigned "it's never gunna get better, so" OK; or a wistful, hopeful "maybe it might" OK; or a "can hardly wait to try this" OK ...
This stylistic motif helps maintain feeling for the rather lost central wife character Laura amidst all the hilarity and mayhem, but that's where we get to the only small reservation I have about "Nude Tuesday".
After proceeding for quite a while as side-slapping tightly-staged comedy, suddenly we are with her as she wanders alone (well, except for a goat) contemplating the future of her marriage, as the previous manic energy evaporates.
Personal reflection on what life all means isn't inappropriate, of course - it's just that we've had so much glorious madcap fun that when the pace drops, we miss it.
After enjoying seeing domestic suburban tedium skewered, then delighting in having the baloney-bubble of earnest mystical, healing, find yourself, everything is good, be who you are, it was all meant to be (etc. Etc.) burst with such glee, suddenly, so late in the film, to be pondering the wife's fate, seems a little flat (along with a couple of later scenes as we near the end).
But ... let's be clear. This is a structural thing, not a performance thing. The actors (especially Jackie van Buren) manage to keep their characters real throughout the mad stuff, a very hard balance to pull off - perhaps the gold medal in playing characters more-or-less real while all around goes off the wall was achieved in "Wellington Paranormal", with which several key "Nude Tuesday" people have also been involved.
For all that (really rather geeky screen-biz consideration) "Nude Tuesday" is bloody good fun, and it's hard to imagine anyone not enjoying it.
Derek Morton.
