Watching Mental in the Village East Cinema the other night I was happily transported back to the glorious 1990’s Indie Renaissance. Absent were all the deplorable obsessions of modern comedy – poop humor, slapstick routines that have been beaten to death, post-Seinfeld humor, completely predictable dialog, shamelessly ridden soundtracks, and above all: dreary stories, superficial themes, and crap, postmodern endings. In their place stood a reasonable facsimile of how great the indie movement was back then, a film so fresh and fun and completely unselfconscious that it is literally a breath of fresh air. It took three months, but 2013 has finally produced a good movie.

Back in the early 1990’s, P.J. Hogan made one of the earliest gems of the Indie Renaissance, Muriel’s Wedding. Mental is his modern reworking of the same themes: awkwardness, being different, parental scorn, musical obsession, coolness, conformity, and insanity. What’s even stranger is that he kept the same basic story structure. I swear to God the house in this movie is the same exact house used in Muriel’s Wedding. Instead of Porpoise Spit, the town’s called Dolphin Heads. In both films, the mother is crazy, the kids are all weird drifting slackers, and the father hates his family and is never home. Both films weave a particular musical motif into the story in the same humorously unifying way. And Toni Collette is the one direct link between the two films: in Muriel’s Wedding she plays the one child who escapes; in Mental she plays the crazy “nanny” who heals all the dysfunction.

I really have no criticism of this film. On one level, it’s a night of pure fun at the movies, a very rare commodity these days. On another level, the movie has a lot to say about being different in a highly conformist society, and about being accepted in such a society, and remarkably this never feels pasted-on. The comedy and deeper themes blend into a pleasing stream of very satisfying entertainment. Muriel’s Wedding was the same way; indeed, this kind of strange alchemy was quite common during the Indie Renaissance, but it is virtually non-existent today.

A word on Toni Collette. She is an amazing actress, one who never really got her due. She has incredible range, incredible facial control, warmth, charisma, and naturalness. She was remarkable in Muriel’s Wedding and she’s great here in Mental. And don’t forget her supporting role in About a Boy, in which she was absolutely superb. But beyond these few films, what of significance has she ever gotten the opportunity to do? I guess we should be thankful that she got any quality leading roles at all.

Mental: head right out and see it today! You’ll be happy you did.