2 months ago
8
Sunny Nights ★★★★
This new comedy from Trent O’Donnell, director/executive producer of Colin From Accounts, takes a little bit to hit its stride, but stick with it – once it gets going, it’s a lot of fun.
American siblings Martin (Saturday Night Live comedian Will Forte) and Vicki Marvin (D’Arcy Carden, Janet in The Good Place) have come to Sydney to set up a spray tan business – Tansform, a tan in a can – a destination they’ve chosen based on our rates of skin cancer.
D’Arcy Carden and Will Forte as siblings Vicki and Martin Marvin in Sunny Nights. Credit: Stan
Martin, a sensible risk analyst, is adrift after his marriage broke down, and his wife Joyce (Ra Chapman), is now living in Sydney, trying to make it as a journalist. He’s determined to win her back with his bold new business venture. Vicki, the family’s impulsive loose cannon, hopes to prove she’s not a no-hoper who can’t hold down a job.
Arriving in Sydney for a beauty convention, they check into the dodgy Sunny Nights motel, with the aim of finding a retail partner to stock Tansform. But things go awry immediately after Martin sleeps with Susi (Jessica de Gouw), a woman he meets at the convention – who happens to be a con artist. She films their night of passion and over brunch the next day, Martin is confronted by local gangster Kash Monroe (Miritana Hughes), demanding $10,000 – all Martin and Vicki have – to keep the footage private.
Former NRL star Willie Mason as standover man Terry.Credit: Stan
Things go rapidly downhill, and they become increasingly entangled in Sydney’s criminal underworld. I won’t spoil it, but there’s extortion aplenty, murder and an exploding crocodile. It’s very Australian, without inducing too much cringing.
The criminal gang led by Kash and his sister Mony is at once terrifying and hilarious. The always brilliant Rachel House (long-time Taika Waititi favourite) is Mony, who we first see in prison getting a tattoo that goes wrong – and promptly maiming the tattooist in a most inventive manner. When she’s released, and learns Kash is missing, she makes it her mission to find out what happened, aided by her henchmen Dentist Dave (Matuse), whose specialty needs no explanation, and Dreadlock Pete (George Mason).
The gang operates from a dilapidated fun park, an incongruously fabulous setting. You may never regard mini-golf in the same way again.
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Susi is on the gang periphery, and former professional rugby league footballer Willie Mason (who can act!) is Terry – a former footballer turned standover man. Terry is a reluctant criminal, driven by the crippling symptoms of his CTE, a brain disease common among footballers. He’s searching for a cure and is estranged from his family to spare them his behavioural changes. It’s just one of the moments of humanity in this often blood-soaked dark comedy.
To further complicate matters, as things spiral for Vicki and Marvin, his ex Joyce, who is stuck writing listicles for an online site, starts to investigate the exploding crocodile case in her own time, teaming up with reptile handler Nova (the very funny Megan Wilding).
There are well-trodden comic-crime caper tropes here, but the writing – the series is created by Americans Nick Keetch and Ty Freer, and the writing team includes locals Marieke Hardy and Lally Katz – and the terrific script and acting feel fresh.
It’s highly implausible fun, but stays just on the right side of zany, and underneath the underworld goings-on, there’s a motif of family, loyalty and belonging, without ever becoming mawkish.
Sunny Nights streams on Stan* from December 26.
Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.
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