This is one like no other. 'Sightseers' is the kind of film you're afraid to admit you liked out of fear that your opinion says more about you than the movie.
Tina and Chris are a new couple setting off on a caravanning holiday where Chris plans to show Tina the wonders that lie just outside her home, like the Kreswick Pencil Museum and the Ribblehead Viaduct and the Crich Tramway Museum. Unfortunately the combination of a terrible mishap at the Tramway Museum and Tina's nasty, oppressive, co-dependent mother sends the couple's romantic getaway off course, where bachelorettes, travel writers and amateur inventors are far from safe. At some point in a teenage girl's life, she believes that you have to sleep with a boy to get him to like you. Tina's stunted adulthood causes her to follow a similar path of emotional self-destruction but by a totally different and unexpected means.
WATCH: 'SIGHTSEERS'
Alice Lowe and Steve Oram as our odd couple are terrific. Being unknowns outside of the UK plays to the film's advantage, as the deeper the story goes down the rabbit hole the more engrossing and convincing these characters and their tale becomes.
There's no denying that this is the blackest of comedies, but it's the film's originality coupled with its utter unpredictability and the oddball - yet disturbingly believable - characters that set this film apart and make it truly unforgettable.
This English independent is a film that will really get you talking and changing your opinion moment to moment. It's definitely worth a look for those who like their cinema way left of centre.
'Sightseers' opens in Sydney and Melbourne on Boxing Day, followed by WA on the 10th of January and SA, Brisbane and Tasmania on the 18th of January.