Once their French, paraplegic, alcoholic father skips off this mortal coil too, the siblings are separated and sent to opposite sides of Australia to live in starkly different circumstances — Gilbert with a strict, religious family cult who wouldn’t balk at rolling out their “de-Satanizer” machine for some electro-convulsive gay conversion therapy; Grace with a couple of accountant swingers who eventually abandon her when they discover nude round-the-world cruises.
However, there wouldn’t have been an Oscars nod without at least some kind of “deeper meaning” and, although it’s ladled on thick and heavy, Pinky’s message to Grace about not trapping yourself in a cage of your own making is something many of us might well have forgotten about.
Much of that joie de vivre comes from Grace’s only friend Pinky, an ancient woman who’s done it all (including playing ping-pong with Fidel Castro as well as that chopper incident with Denver’s chopper).
Narrated lovingly by Succession’s Sarah Snook as Grace (who isn’t a snail, she’s just obsessed with them; and they do actually serve a metaphorical purpose), it’s sad, bleak but also brimming with charmingly wacky lolz.
Halfway around the globe resides equally brilliant Australian animator Adam Elliot, also an Oscar-winner for his 2004 short, Harvie Krumpet, about a chronically unlucky man with Tourette’s syndrome and a nudity fascination.
