Film critic Roger Ebert, whose death was announced yesterday, was a huge fan of our favorite eminent domain movie, Australia’s The Castle. Not so much a fan in the four-star-auteur-director-Fellini-Malick-Herzog mode, but a fan in the sense that when it came time for programming for his personal film festival and others, he selected it more than once and dubbed it “the funniest film in the history of Ebertfest.”
And so life spins along at 3 Highview Crescent in Melbourne, where the Kerrigan home sits surrounded by its built-on rooms, screened-in porch, greyhound kennel, big-dish satellite and carport. For Darryl, it is not so much a house as a shrine to one of the best darn families in the universe, and he proudly points out the plastic Victorian gingerbread trim and the fake chimney to an inspector–who is there, as it turns out, to condemn the property under the laws of eminent domain.
The Kerrigans don’t want to move. They’ve been told that the three most important words in real estate are “location, location, location”–and how could they improve on their home’s convenient location, so close to the airport? So close, indeed, that jumbo jets pass within inches of the property line, and the house trembles when they take off.
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The film develops suspense with a big (or, actually, a very small) courtroom finale. The Kerrigans determine to mount a legal battle against eviction and hire an attorney named Dennis Denuto (Tiriel Mora) to represent them, against his own advice (he specializes in repossessions).
When he approaches the bench, it is to ask the judge, “How am I doing?” or to whisper urgently, “Can you give me an angle?” He gives the case his best shot (Dale informs us he “even learned Roman numerals” for the appeal), but it isn’t until a kindly old expert in constitutional law (Charles “Bud” Tingwell) comes on board that they have a prayer.
Read his review here. Our review of The Castle here.