I tend to wince whenever I hear a film introduced as a blend of comedy and tragedy – not because it’s a bad combination, but because it’s one of the hardest to get right. So many artists attempt to tickle our funny bones while hitting us where it hurts, and so many come up short. Actor turned film-maker Mark Leonard Winter gives it a noble crack in his directorial debut The Rooster, a bumpy outdoorsy drama about two broken men – a cop and a hermit – connecting and potentially healing through the deployment of pensive stares and introspective dialogue, performed in Australian bush settings.
The film’s core dynamic works in contrasts, pairing Phoenix Raei’s sullen cop Dan with a violently loud recluse played by Hugo Weaving. The latter’s grubby look and sheer hermitness reminded me of Paul Dano in Swiss Army Man, the so-called “boner corpse movie” starring Daniel Radcliffe as the corpse and Dano as a filthy outcast who lugs it around. I’m not sure whether that rather idiosyncratic picture (from the directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once) ruined my appetite for off-the-grid films about men bonding, or whether it renewed my appreciation of ones that don’t follow its lead (no corpses, no boners).
