Feelgood British low-budget whimsy, Brian and Charles‘s only real fault is that it’s taken the maddening decision to tell its story as a mock-doc. “Twee” – a regular criticism – could be lined up as another possible criticism, though I suspect that “fanciful” is what the naysayers really mean. In which case discard the bulk of Hollywood’s output.
It started life as a short costing £500 in 2017, which British TV station Channel 4 liked and wanted to convert into a series. That never happened but C4 did put up some of the money for this film, the feature debut of director Jim Archer. Though really the film belongs to its two stars, David Earl and Chris Hayward, who also wrote it.
Earl plays Brian, a lonely inventor in rural Wales who finds a mannequin head one day and is inspired by it to build a robot, using as his other main component an old washing machine. Hayward plays Charles, the robot Brian builds and which unexpectedly comes to life one day, possibly as a result of Brian’s pet mouse having been inside Charles’s inert body/structure nibbling things.
From here blossoms a cartoonish bromance between lonely human Brian and bumptious robot Charles (“Charles Petrescu”, as he introduces himself to other people), complicated by a faltering will they/won’t they between Brian and the equally shy Hazel (Louise Brealey), a local villager terrorised by her stern mother. Plus potential aggro with a local family headed by Eddie (Jamie Michie), a bully who’s possibly been tormenting Brian for his whole life.
These are all arcs for Brian. Charles gets less to do in terms of development but he is the source of much of the comedy. He looks funny, for a start, and Archer’s direction regularly reminds us what an awkward shape a robot built from a washing machine would be. The way Charles’s flat robotic voice uses language is also regularly amusing. One minute dudespeak (“cool”) , the next nursery language (going “wee-wees”), while Charles’s love of dancing – jigging about hopelessly – is also funny, and his pitching of odd questions (“How far does outside go?” “Can birds do what they like?) adds a layer of the sort of eccentric philosophising you get from a four year old.
As well as all the warm and quirky stuff there’s also the plot involving Eddie and his vile family. The casting is very good in this movie, from top to bottom, but special mention must be made of Lowri and Mari Izzard as Eddie’s horrible, spiteful, almost-feral daughters. They don’t do an awful lot but every moment they are on screen carries a special charge.
The character of Brian has turned up in various Ricky Gervais ventures but it’s the mock-doc aspect, as if we were watching an episode of The Office, that’s the only really regrettable aspect of this inventive, funny, charming and touching film. The mock-dockery is not even consistent, which means that sometimes when Brian is addressing the camera of whoever is meant to be making this “documentary” you just wish he wouldn’t, while at other times you are jerked back to the realisation that that’s what’s meant to be going on. This worked fine in the short, which was only 12 minutes long (you can find it here on YouTube, and it’s well worth it), but is less successful at 90 minutes.
That said, Archer, Earl and Hayward have successfully bumped this up to feature length. By adding Eddie and family plus the engagingly sweet Hazel they’ve fleshed out a story without it feeling padded, and retained the interpretative possibilities of the original – from the comments below the YouTube version some people see Brian and Charles as the middle-aged man and his demented parent, others as the parent raising a child with learning difficulties.
For all the location shooting in wet, overcast Wales (it has been known to rain there), and the very British sensibility, this is built like a classic Hollywood underdog comedy. Will Brian grow a pair, get the girl and best the villain? And what about funny, odd Charles? Will there be a ride into the sunset for him too?
Brian and Charles – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
