Jemaine Clement off limits on set

BY RICHARD WOODD

Big-name star Jemaine Clement was kept strictly off-limits when the makers of Predicament lifted the lid on filming in Eltham.

But news media people were able to interview four other actors, including Tim Finn in his movie debut, along with the director Jason Stutter.

Clement (Flight of the Conchords) is going to be a key factor in selling the movie to United States and European audiences. He plays a dark, manipulative character called Spook and without his trademark black framed spectacles, is barely recognisable.

Stutter describes him as "one of the hottest young comedians in the world at present".

Predicament is a crime comedy set in the 1930s written by late Hawera author Ronald Hugh Morrieson, in which a naive teenager conspires with two misfits to photograph and blackmail wealthy adulterous couples.

The cast was named yesterday for the first time: In the lead role of teenager Cedric Williamson is Hayden Frost, a Wellington theatre actor doing his first movie. He's just finished a Wellington season in Arthur Miller's The Crucible and was unofficially nominated for The Downstage Award for Best Pash of 2008, in love scenes with Anna Pearson in RPM.

Australian comedian Heath Franklin who has just completed box office record-breaking tours of Australian and New Zealand with his Harden Up comedy show is Mervyn Toebeck, who teams up with Spook to lead Cedric astray.

Rose McIver, fresh from an acting role in Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, is the lusted-after Maybelle Zimmerman.

Others are Peter Mochrie, Brook Williams, Edward Newborn, Chad Mills, Hadleigh Walker, Tina Grenville-Cagwin and Carmel McGlone.

The film is being produced by Sue Rogers for Midnight Films, with funding by the NZ Film Commission, NZ On Air, Fulcrum Media Finance and the South Taranaki District Council. It will be released in New Zealand and Australia next year by Rialto Distribution and internationally by NZ Film Sales.

The total budget is believed to be between $5 million and $6 million.

Yesterday was the biggest day of filming on the seven-week schedule, which winds up at the end of August. A total of 91 extras were on set, most of them locals. They included South Taranaki District Council staff and members of the Manaia Golf Club.

Many of the Bridge St shop frontages were transformed for the scene shooting, which went on until after dark.

Director Stutter says the movie will appeal to international audiences because its themes are universal.

"This film has strong themes people can relate to, like loneliness, friendship, anxiety about being accepted. It's a New Zealand story, set in New Zealand and it's not pretending to be American for instance.

"I hadn't heard of Morrieson before a friend loaned me the book. I read it in one sitting and couldn't believe it hadn't already been made into a movie. It started me on a five-year journey which has brought us here.

"Morrieson is such a clever writer. I found it weird that I'd heard of Katherine Mansfield in school but not him. Mansfield has her birthplace in Wellington but I think Morrieson's gets more visits plus it has a drive-through. [the site of Morrieson's Hawera home is a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet].

"We want to make a movie we hope he'd be proud of. We haven't changed the theme or tone, I love the dark humour and the incredible emotional journey running through it," Stutter said.

Split Enz founder Tim Finn plays Martin Williamson, Cedric's deranged father who builds a strange tower with scrap timber. He says the story has "dark undercurrents" and some not particularly wholesome things happening.

"But Hawera is not that different to my hometown of Te Awamutu so I can relate to those complexities of small town life," he said.

Ron Morrieson was a serious musician himself and Finn said he "would have fitted into Split Enz really well".

Hayden Frost describes his character Cedric as "in his awkward adolescent phase" where he hasn't quite figured out his place in the world.

"He's become an outcast by proxy and is still figuring out how to deal with people and how to live day to day," he said.

He is finding the experience of living in South Taranaki as "quite fantastic" just wandering around.

"People who knew Morrieson when he was alive have their stories to tell. Everyone knows everything because it's such a small community. From what I've heard he wasn't particularly well liked, he was very eccentric and frowned upon, a heavy drinker.

"He is looked back on reasonably fondly now though."

Heath Franklin, discussing his own character Mervyn Toebeck, said he sounds like an awful scoundrel, a complete deviant with no morals at all.

He summed up the movie in one sentence: "A boy named Cedric gets led astray, horrible things happen, there is closure." He said living in Hawera was amazing.

"This is such a beautiful part of the world. You wake in the morning, stagger out of the motel, see the mountain in the distance and go off for a bit of a drive somewhere among the cows."

Rose McIver (Maybelle Zimmerman) was surprised at the size of Hawera.

"It's much bigger than I was expecting. There are 50-odd places to eat and 20 hair salons. Everyone has been so hospitable. I'm really excited about the film. My character is not involved in too much of the dark and scary stuff, I have a really enjoyable role. There are some incredible undertones in the book."

- © Fairfax NZ News