Book Week (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Nick Cutler (Alan Dukes) is a struggling English teacher and even harder struggling author. However, when his latest novel catches the attention of a publisher, he sees a chance to redeem himself for the cock-up he made during the publicity for his last book. As he tries to keep himself out of trouble, rowdy students, romantic entanglements and a whole lot of booze stand in the way between him and some sense of redemption.

Dukes definitely nails the scumbag charm needed to make this kind of character worth watching, especially since this is a character study with him having the lion’s share of the spotlight. Susan Prior as his main-ish romantic partner shows a certain youthful cheek at times, but she mostly serves as the closest thing this film has to a rational center, something she handles quite well even in the face of how her character is introduced. Airlie Dodds as the other third of the main romantic triangle works nicely as somewhat of an entry point for the audience, showing the impressionable start that could very well lead to the hardened cynicism of Nick.

Rose Riley as Nick’s student Melanie… you know, it’s been a while since I’ve heard a film use the word “fucktard”, a moment that sets her up accurately as the apex of all things cunty. She’s unlikeable, no fuckin’ doubt about it, but unlike Dukes, it’s the kind of unlikeable that didn’t exactly have me hankering to see any more of her than was absolutely necessary. Rhys Muldoon and Tiriel Mora show up here as they do in pretty much every other Aussie film of late, doing pretty well as Nick’s agent and the principal of Nick’s school respectively, and Pippa Grandison and Nicholas Hope as Nick’s sister and father respectively end up adding a lot to the emotional push lying in wait underneath all the coarseness.

Writing, in its purest form, is the act of creation. Within the confines of a page, what a writer says is law and what is created in this two-dimensional spaces becomes no less real than the three-dimensional objects that exist slightly to the left of that page. To write, in essence, to create, to become god of a confined universe. Is it no wonder then, with this in mind, that a lot of writers turn out to be narcissistic arseholes, believing themselves to be greater than anyone else around them? I mean, that’s what most depictions of writers in media tend to lean towards, this being no exception. Nick, through his own words, is a quite insufferable elitist; there’s a scene where he gets into an argument with a special-ed kid that comics aren’t “real” books. As someone who takes a lot of writing cues from Spider Jerusalem, it’s surprising where the offence managed to penetrate in that instance. Beyond that, he’s incredibly pretentious about his work and what the world owes him, which ends up serving as the impetus for his film-long character arc: Learning to be less of a twat and think about people other than himself.

Now, that particular arc is not only part and parcel of the story of the narcissistic creator, it is also rather familiar even outside of that scope. The love triangle, the perpetually sloshed attempts to excuse his own actions, the near-constant temptation to get back into his old habits; even just within the time I’ve been doing this blog, I’ve seen this story quite a few times already. The emphasis on alcohol consumption has shadows of Chris Rock’s Top Five or even Ruben Guthrie, and the message of overcoming one’s own ego feels rather Birdman in how it presented, thematically if not visually. Being able to get past this familiarity is a bit of an uphill struggle, since the film doesn’t exactly present this in a way that feels all that fresh or inventive.

As far as the main character, that is. The more thematic touches, particularly those connected to the Aussie tradition that gives this film its name, actually land on much firmer ground. While I joke somewhat about Nick’s rather dickish perspectives on literature, not to mention the context of where he presents it, there is some form of reasoning behind this view on the published word. In the first of many conversations with publishers played by Toby Schmitz and Khan Chittenden, the pitch for Nick’s book ends up evolving into discussions of what to do after the book. The two brings up Google analytical data as far as buying trends, trying to tailor the book in light of that, even mentioning how cool it would be if Brad Pitt turned it into a movie. Knowing how the popularity of eBooks and even services like Audible have changed how our culture consumes this particular media, along with the very real attitude that exists that thinks literary works are just fonts ready to be turned into box office numbers, there's definite truth in what's being said here. There’s also quite a few conversations strictly involving Book Week as a school tradition, complete with arguments about whether a person’s choice of cosplay even counts as a literary character. As someone who once went to Book Week as Harry Potter, with far more familiarity with the films than any of the original novels, this idea is quite familiar and worthy of a few chuckles out of how real it gets.

All in all, this has some solid ideas floating around it but it’s just too familiar to really sink in properly. The acting is good, with Alan Dukes giving a pretty bankable central performance, the production values feel domestic and true Aussie without feeling too cheap, and while the writing does mine some good quotables relating to how the written word is treated in the age of social media, it still relies on a portrait of the condescending writer who needs to pull his head out of his own arse, one that has had the paint chipping away from it for a while now. Much like 1%, this is still a decent reprieve from what has unfortunately been the norm for Aussie cinema this year… however, also like 1%, I don’t see improvement over being plain garbage to be quite enough to make this wholly worth supporting.