Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Ben Feldman, Perry Mooney, Stephen Curry, Katrina Milosevic, Chai Hansen, Pippa Grandison, Steve Le Marquand, Genevieve Lemon, Darren Gilshenan
Intro:
Working with a script that successfully navigates when to build the tension and when to break it with over-the-top silliness, the humour eventually gives way to the genuine mystery of it all and we begin to see the real strength of the show.
When a man goes missing in a rural Australian town with a total population of 12, you’d think that at least one of the tight-knit tenants would have some idea of where to find him.
For Andy Pruden (Ben Feldman, Superstore, Mad Men) — son of the missing man, Hugo (Darren Gilshenan) — travelling from the United States to Bidgeegud, Back of Beyond, in the hopes of continuing his desperate search in person proves to be far less fruitful than he could have imagined. In a town that’s equally off-the-wall as it is off the map, no one’s got a clue (in more ways than one), and everyone’s a suspect.
Comedy meets thriller meets true crime story in this quirky gem inspired by real life events (recently explored by doco series Last Stop Larrimah). The disappearance of Paddy Moriarty from Larrimah in outback Northern Territory back in 2017 proved to be a head-scratcher when no one in his tiny town had a clue what could have become of him. Series creator Phil Lloyd took the premise and ran with it, dropping his protagonist directly into an anthill of Aussie oddballs, each with their own mystery to uncover, forcing Andy to put together all the pieces before he can figure out exactly what’s become of his vanished father.
The cast as a whole seem to savour the absurdity, each character proving more ludicrous than the last. Stephen Curry is an unhinged delight as Noel Pinkus, with his bathroom sink dye job and his obsession with miniature models, while Katrina Milosevic’s Sgt. Geraldine Walters is amusingly off-putting yet equally menacing.
Despite the small-town quirkiness and ocker Aussie humour, this isn’t your average fish-out-of-water American making fun of rural Australian culture. Ben Feldman’s Andy is just as unbalanced as the rest of them and he does a commendable job as both the everyman character and anchor of the plot, and occasionally devolving into his own brand of goofy mania, holding his own against the rest of the motley crew.
Although it was filmed in the Kimberley region in WA, Population 11 is hardly a boon for Australian tourism. The set design leans hard into the desolate, dusty, corrugated tin shed aesthetic rather than showcasing the unique beauty of the area. It’s a fitting echo of Andy’s own isolation, stranded and alone, his only confidant in all this mess is Cassie (Perry Mooney), who declares outright that she’s only in it for the reward money.
Working with a script that successfully navigates when to build the tension and when to break it with over-the-top silliness, the humour eventually gives way to the genuine mystery of it all and we begin to see the real strength of the show. Watching the story unfold piece by piece, each half-hour-long episode feels tightly paced, and with more than a few well-timed cliffhangers, you’ll be glad that the full season is being released all at once.
