‘Inside the Kellyverse’: how Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy became a Christmas film

‘The space between what men say and how they actually feel’ … Jonah Wren Phillips as Angus and Daniel Henshall as Joe in How to Make Gravy. Photograph: Binge

There’s a stunning sleight of hand to How to Make Gravy in that it’s almost impossible to pin the film down to an era. An earthy, 70s colour palette. The fashion and cars are 90s shabby. The backyard trestle table, tinselled up for Christmas lunch, and the screen doors, banging more insistently as the red wine flows, are perennial. Eventually I spot a vape, but the overall effect is to drench the brain with nostalgia.

Binge commissioned How to Make Gravy as its first original feature film, based on the 1996 Paul Kelly song of the same name. Its creators have been loyal to those early fans (like Hugo Weaving, one of the stars) who vividly remember discovering the song on Rage back in the day and still hold it dear.