“Show of Hands” (2008)

“Show of Hands” may well be a first for New Zealand cinema.  To the best of my limited knowledge it is our only film to date in which an author has adapted his own novel, writing the screenplay and directing.  Andrew McCarten’s previous feature, “Via Satellite”, was based on his stage play, so he clearly has a foot in both  literary and cinematic camps.

There are advantages in this.  McCarten knows his characters, his plot and his themes inside out.  However, there is also such a thing as being too close to the material.  If you excuse a bad pun, the likes of which McCarten would probably never stoop to, the “Hands” on display are very heavy ones indeed.  Subtle it is not: large portions of the dialogue feel like they have been lifted wholesale from the page.  Lines spoken even by a largely competent cast come across as stiff and schematic, too often turning characters into transparent mouthpieces for the writer/director/novelist’s ideas.

Like “Via Satellite” “Show of Hands” is a melodrama with some humorous touches.  Melonie Lynskey, in her first New Zealand leading role in seven years, plays Jess, a solo mother metre maid, guilt ridden and low on self esteem, who enters an endurance contest to win a car.  Her motives are seemingly pure: she needs the vehicle to help transport her crippled daughter.  Jess’s prime opposition comes in the form of Craig Hall’s Tom, the world’s most misanthropic creator of greeting cards, a cynic whose monetary woes remain mysterious.  Judging by his bare faced misogyny, they have something to do with a messy divorce.  Tom wants the car for financial gain.

Other competitors include a scruffy looking thief, a stoic pensioner, a perky blond good time girl, a jolly fat man, and a poor little rich boy out to prove himself.  As time and tiredness take their toll each character reveals more about themselves, the heart strings are pulled, tragedy strikes and love blossoms.  There is no shortage of incident.

By the standards of romantic comedy McCarten shows some restraint.  Jess and Tom do not fall head over heels for each other.  Their relationship remains tense and tentative throughout and one of the film’s strongest points is an open ending which resists the obvious ‘two wounded people heal each other’ cliche.  Unfortunately the sometimes stilted, novelistic dialogue is concentrated in their scenes, with Hall a particular victim of McCarten’s weighty pen.

More irritating still is the director’s use of a radio talk back host as a Greek chorus like narrator.   A caricature, whose every line seems contrived, his moral pronouncements on the drama add nothing to the film but alliteration.  Perhaps McCarten watched too many “Northern Exposure” episodes in the 1990s: certainly his disk jockey sounds more like the pretentious Chris character from that show than, say, genuinely New Zealand commentators like Marcus Lush or Mikey Havoc.

The director is on firmer ground in a subplot involving Hatch, the owner of the Used Car business who is running the competition.  With this figure he successfully explores one of his evident themes - contemporary masculinity in crisis - much more so than he does with Tom.  The portrayal of a man struggling to balance his father’s legacy with commitments to his own family and to his staff rings a lot truer than that of the grumpy yuppie women hater who doesn’t want to pay his parking fines.

Perhaps “Show of Hands” would work better if more screen time were devoted to the domestic woes of Hatch.  It certainly would be improved if Melanie Lynskey was given more to do.  Her easy, unaffected charms are by far the best thing the film has going for it and largely transcend McCarten’s limitations.