Mental (2012 film)
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | P. J. Hogan |
| Produced by | Todd Fellman Jocelyn Moorhouse Janet Zucker Jerry Zucker |
| Written by | P.J. Hogan |
| Starring |
Toni Collette Rebecca Gibney Liev Schreiber Anthony LaPaglia |
| Music by | Michael Yezerski |
| Cinematography | Donald McAlpine |
| Edited by | Jill Bilcock |
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Release date
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Running time
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116 minutes |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $3,577,981 |
Mental is a 2012 Australian comedy film directed by PJ Hogan and starring Toni Collette, Rebecca Gibney, Anthony LaPaglia and Liev Schreiber. It premiered on closing night at the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival, and was released in cinemas on 4 October 2012.
Shirley Moochmoore (Rebecca Gibney) is a sweet misfit and mother of five daughters who are all convinced they suffer from various mental illnesses. Living in the Australian coastal suburb of Dolphin Heads and married to the often absent local politician Barry (Anthony LaPaglia), Shirley retreats into a fantasy world of her favourite musical, The Sound of Music. After she manically orders a huge amount of furniture, telling neighbours her husband won it on a TV game show, she's packed off to a mental institution; Barry instructs his daughters to say she's "on holiday in Wollongong".
Barry enlists a mysterious, surly hitchhiker named Shaz (Toni Collette) to care for his family. Shaz terrifies the girls into obedience with her ocker accent, her dog Ripper and the knife she keeps in her cowboy boot, but she also encourages them to stand up to local bullies including their smarmy Aunt Doris (Caroline Goodall), their snobbish, house-proud neighbour Nancy (Kerry Fox) and the two mean girls who run the local coffee shop and who had forced Shirley to eat unwanted donuts. Shaz's philosophy is that the 'normal' world is insane, and so-called 'crazy' people are the normal ones. She leads the Moochmore girls on a dawn climb of a nearby mountain. From its peak, they each select a stone to symbolise their newfound ability to overcome adversity.
Shaz also encourages eldest daughter Coral (Lily Sullivan) to pursue a romance with Trout (Sam Clark), a hunky, guitar-strumming lifeguard at the aquatic theme park where Coral works for an eccentric shark hunter named Trevor Blundell (Liev Schreiber). Trevor had earlier disrupted Trout clumsily kissing Coral in the shark exhibit; but thanks to the confidence Shaz instils in Coral, Trout genuinely falls for her, and the pair spend a romantic evening together riding waterslides in the nude after the park has closed.
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