Something to watch tonight: Tuesday 8 April

Kenny (Jacobson, 2006)

Yesterday, I was asked to lend my ana­lyt­ic­al brain to RNZ’s Midday Report show to talk about the most recent Netflix price increase.

In case you missed the news, the price of the cheapest monthly sub­scrip­tion to Netflix is going up to NZ$17.99 (in March last year it was only NZ$12.99) with the oth­er plans rising in sim­il­ar fashion.

Only a couple of days ago, I com­plained that Netflix has very little to offer clas­sic movie fans and doesn’t fea­ture any­thing much that isn’t already well-known. Today, I thought I should test that the­ory using Netflix’s own com­pre­hens­ive tag­ging sys­tem – I searched for “hid­den gems”.

This res­ul­ted in 42 offers, includ­ing two Best Picture Oscar-winners and sev­er­al oth­er multi-award win­ners, so I’d sug­gest that if these are hid­den then there’s no one to blame except Netflix.

Anyway, because we are just a minor sub-branch of Australian Netflix a few of the hid­den gems are from across the Tasman, includ­ing this abso­lute win­ner from 2006:

Films like Kenny are usu­ally called “mock­u­ment­ar­ies” for two reas­ons: they appear to be doc­u­ment­ar­ies but they’re not really and (in films like Spinal Tap and TV’s “The Office”) they usu­ally “mock” their sub­jects. This is different.

In a delight­ful first fea­ture by the Jacobson Brothers, porta-loo plumb­er Kenny Smyth is a par­agon of a man: he loves his fam­ily; takes pride in his job; and finds the bright side of situ­ations that would force most of us to jump head first in to a bath of deoder­ant. The film fol­lows our hero (played to per­fec­tion by Shane Jacobson) through a few weeks of an event-filled Melbourne spring, cul­min­at­ing in the big one: over 125,000 people at the Melbourne Cup. While he per­forms his (lit­er­ally) thank­less tasks, Kenny stoic­ally puts up with an unre­li­able ex-wife, a co-worker with diarrhoea (of the verbal kind) and a fath­er who is one of the great screen mon­sters of all time (played with an admir­able absence of van­ity by the real Jacobson pére, Ronald).

Kenny is a philosopher-plumber, a bard of the bath­room, and has that mas­tery of the ver­nacu­lar that Australians seem to excel at: “Mate, there’s a smell in here that will out­last reli­gion!” is my favour­ite but there’s plenty more.

Kenny is my num­ber one film of the year and the fun­ni­est Australian pic­ture since The Castle. Highly recom­men­ded to any­one who has ever taken a dump (or had a Henry-Pissinger).

Also reviewed in that Capital Times column from November 2006: Aussie WWII drama set in the Pacific, Kokoda, and Russell Crowe get­ting a paid hol­i­day in Provence with Ridley Scott – A Good Year.

Where to watch Kenny

Aotearoa: Streaming on Netflix

Australia: Streaming on Netflix, Prime Video or Stan

Canada: Digital rental

Ireland: Streaming on Prime Video

India: Not cur­rently avail­able online

USA: Streaming on Prime Video

UK: Digital rental