- guardian.co.uk,
- Monday January 21 2008 18:01 GMT
Made by a Samoan writer-director with Sundance assistance, Eagle vs Shark is a very oddball romcom. It's been compared by almost every reviewer to Napoleon Dynamite and when you've seen it, the resemblance seems inevitable as they're practically in a genre of two, peopled entirely by eccentric, gawky misfits. But this is in no way a ripoff and its New Zealand setting is a big bonus, not least for those amazingly strengulated iccents. (Sample dialogue: "Do you wanna hev six?" "Yup.")
This is an early discussion between our lead anti-heroes. He's a video-store clerk, who makes his own candles; she's a recently sacked fast-food employee, and the film's title comes from their costumes at his party - you come dressed as your favourite animal and compete at video games. The back-of-beyond setting helps the plot too: when Jarrod breaks up with Lily, she goes to the bus stop ready to go home, only to be told that there's only one bus per week. More exquisitely awkward encounters follow as a direct result of the bus schedule - hopping on a Greyhound or Inter-City train is not an option here. Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) will be known to some as half of TV's Flight of the Conchords, threatening to catch on in a culty, Mighty Boosh kind of way. Quaintness abounds, not least in its stop-motion apple-core animation. I think it will be a toe-curler for some, but I kind of liked it.
