Mental

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The movie revolves around a family where the dad is neglecting his family to run for office (and having an affair), the mom has a nervous breakdown because of this and because the five daughters are such a handful, and the daughters spend time on the internet diagnosing themselves with various mental illnesses to get attention. The dad, at the end of his rope, picks up a charismatic hitchhiker (Toni Collette) and installs her in the house as the new nanny, and she brings even more chaos to the already over-the-top household.

Mr. Otter and I were having an evening at home, and he had brought this from his library…it looked amusing, so I gave it a try, and it certainly kept my interest!

There were many things I liked about this movie. The daughters were cute, ranging from eight to about 14. Liev Schreiber, as Trevor the Shark Hunter, was great, and Toni Collette was totally believeable as the wierd and nonconformist nanny. Things mostly resolve well for most people in this movie, and getting there was kind of fun.

On the other hand, this was kind of wierd…everyone in this movie did really strange and random things. Totally un-PC, but that’s Australians for you; I would not recommend this movie to anyone who is sensitive about mental illness or those who are (or are not) diagnosed with it, but for me, it was mostly funny. And I liked the teen romance aspects of it, because teenagers really do go hormonally nuts and do a lot of odd things…that part worked really well.

A quirky but fun movie for those not sensitive to its mockery.