Television comedy power couple Robin Butler and Wayne Hope (‘Upper Middle Bogan’) have set their sights on the big screen. Why? Because apparently they found a spare 15 minutes in their day and decided it needed to be filled. It seems that hit TV show after hit TV show wasn’t enough for the over-achieving duo, and so a feature film was in order with Butler writing and starring and husband Hope directing. Tripling your content and taking care of a couple ex-pats turned Hollywood stars is a big deal, so did they pull it off?
Caroline (Robyn Butler) is a mother of two and the wife of a neurotic self-help author (Erik Thomson). When her sister Beth (Portia de Rossi) and superstar teen niece Honey (Lucy Fry) come for a visit from LA, everything starts to spiral out of control when Beth is thrown into rehab, a family secret is revealed and a spoilt teen starlet sans entourage and manager is let loose on her life.
Butler is proudly using ‘Now Add Honey’ as a platform for important issues about sexualising children, ageing, body image and self-esteem. These messages are loud and clear, but sometimes at the expensive of a coherent story and genuine laughs. It’s the kind of story where the solution is so obvious it’s often painful to not see it realised - but if it were it would make for a short film, so we persevere.
‘Now Add Honey’ is fun and silly, gently giving you the sugar to help the social messages go down, aided by the support cast Lucy Durack, Angus Sampson and Hamish Blake.