A jagoff city boy heads deep into the Australian outback to seek his fortune, but finds only vice, macho posturing and ritualised drunken kangaroo massacres. That film is Ted Kotcheff’s sand-blasted nightmare from 1971, Wake In Fright, but its plot bares uncanny resemblance to the cheery PG-rated shenanigans of Kangaroo by director Kate Woods.
Here, an air-headed TV weatherman Chris “Masto” Masterman (Ryan Corr) finds himself right up a gum tree when a clout chasing exercise on Bondi Beach goes awry and he accidentally murders a baby dolphin in public view. Escaping from his social media pariah status by hopping into his red corvette and high tailing it to the other side of the country, he knocks over and kills a ‘roo en route and feels like his troubles are going to be compounded further.
Envisaging his future as some tawdry animal serial killer, he decides to save the little Joey from the dead ‘roo’s pouch, and hobbles to the nearest little roadside community: that of Silver Gum. While there, he meets an inspiring latchkey loner named Charlie (Lily Whiteley) who convinces him to stick around and nurse the motherless Joey.
Get more Little White Lies
While there are certainly some rough edges to the performances and its redemption-themed drama is happy to play though to all the well-worn cues, Kangaroo works like gangbusters as a refreshingly earnest throwback to the salad says of the animal buddy comedy. Corr makes for a charismatic lead as a man who learns that Instagram followers are not your friends, while a robust script does a capital job of fleshing out a sizeable supporting cast of eccentric local bit players, foremost of which is Rachel House as surly landlady Jesse who offers Cordon Bleu cooking from her rickety little pub.
Will Chris embrace his new natural, newfound ability to nurture cute little orphaned Joeys by carting them around in decorative pillowcases and bottle feeding them all day? Or will he yield to the siren call of the media cognoscenti who want him back on the box? The answer is not much of a head-scratcher, but with lots of appealing wildlife and landscape photography to keep things lively, there’s much to cherish in this charming little film.