While never quite as all-around reprehensible as Little Miss Sunshine, Introducing the Dwights at least ups its market-mate in terms of whorishness. Aware that folks might not entirely warm up to a story about a gratingly narcissistic “old cow”—a character’s description of Jean (Blethyn), a godawful stand up comic—it spices things up with a love story involving her 20-year-old son, Tim (Chittenden), and needy blue-collar Jill (Booth) that necessitates many a linger on the actress’ barely legal breasts. And lest that not engage the viewer, hey, there’s always menopausal Jean’s brain-damaged son Mark (Richard Wilson) to laugh at.
Still, director Nowlan’s Australia-set yawner is at least remarkable for finding a new low in product placement: Not content to have everyone in the film flash the latest Motorola cell phone, it demands they suffer through the entirety of that godawful, chittering Moto ring tone, lest mere logos not be sufficient to activate our consumer salivary glands.
As for plot, worry not, boutique indie filmgoer—there is none. There’s just Jean whining about her career, treating her ex (Holden) like crap, making squicky sexual asides to her son and basically seeing how far she can push everyone until they slap her. But the real problem here, in marketing terms, is that Nowlan just isn’t craven enough to pander on a Sunshine level; there are, occasionally, moments when her characters behave like humans.
Most of those moments belong to Chittenden—who smartly underplays Jean’s Oedipally wrecked son—and Booth, who offers in her Jill a finely observed iteration of every girl who grew up a gangly dork but as a young adult is caught between playing on her new hotness and suffering recollections of self-loathing. Their courtship is engaging, charming even.
Unfortunately, the cow abides. Blethyn certainly does her damnedest to make her bleating cipher colorfully despicable, perhaps aware that, as per indie-film law, she can count on being magically redeemed in the film’s last five minutes.
But narrative sense is a moot concern. What matters is laughing at Jean as she makes a downscale ass of herself during her stand-up routines—presented in their excruciatingly unfunny entirety—and the humble antics of her quirky crew. Why? Because the only reason films like this exist is to provide targeted upscale art-house audiences with colorfully ignorant lower-class exotics to whom they can vicariously feel superior.