Nah, we’re not dreamin’.
‘Humpday blues’ can be easily dismissed as a nonsense term until you realise that, at 8:50am on a Wednesday, you’ve caught the wrong bus and definitely won’t make it to work on time. It’s only then, as you’re arriving 30 minutes late in the rain without an umbrella, that the term seems to have almost scientific backing.
In any case, we’re providing the remedy to that midweek slump by suggesting what to watch with our latest Executive Decision, and it’s none other than the 1997 classic, The Castle. Funny, nostalgic, and with enough Australiana to give tourist gift shops a run for their money, its rightfully earned its place as one of our country’s best cultural exports. Here’s five reasons why you should (re)watch The Castle tonight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki-Aw9PZFIQ
Entered the Australian vocabulary.
The Castle is stacked enough distinctly Australian one-liners to warrant an entire dictionary. So enduring are film’s quotes that many of them have seeped into our collective national vocabulary, from disputing an overpriced item (“tell him he’s dreaming”) to acknowledging a natural landscape (“how’s the serenity?”). Perhaps a lesser known yet equally quotable line is Darryl’s “pool room,” a place reserved only for ones most prized possessions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-49bXNLqer4
Ode to bogans (a bodegan?)
The Castle wouldn’t be a true Aussie classic if it didn’t explore one of our most loved phenomena, the bogan. At first glance, the Kerrigan’s are the stereotypical picture of the Australian working class, and it’s their most endearing quality. While lesser films might have reduced the Kerrington’s to caricatures, The Castle treats its cast of battlers lovingly and generously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEp3Ig3isxc
David and Goliath story.
Underneath all the colloquialisms and overdrawn vowel sounds is a universal, David and Goliath-type struggle between the working class and big business, a story still true of Australia today (if Darryl saw Sydney’s current house prices, he’d have a conniption). More broadly, The Castle touches on uniquely Australian themes like land rights, national identity and class and culture wars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dik_wnOE4dk
Eric Bana’s breakout role.
While he’d go on to star in many top-tier Australian films, The Castle was Eric Bana’s breakout role, and saw him play an accountant/ amateur kickboxer. Any film that launches the career of Chopper himself should be commended, but The Castle was also home to some of Australia’s biggest names like Michael Caton and Stephen Curry.
The rest of Australia agrees.
In January of this year, The Sunday Telegraph launched a poll to determine which Australian film reigns supreme. The nominee pool was elite, including fellow vocabulary-makers like Crocodile Dundee (“that’s not a knife”) and Muriel’s Wedding (“you’re terrible) alongside Mad Max and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. But despite its heavy competition, The Castle came out on top, for at least four good reasons…
