For anyone who’s ever lived in Sydney and experienced the excessive drinking culture that rules our fair city, this film will bring tears of laughter to your eyes and tugs of recognition at many a night and following morning wasted away on the sauce.
Written and directed by Brendan Cowell and based on his own experiment of a year off the bottle, Ruben Guthrie follows the journey of award-winning advertising executive Ruben (Patrick Brammall) through his year off alcohol following a near death experience at a drunken house party and the departure of his long-suffering fiancé, Zoya (Abbey Lee).
After Zoya promises to take him back if he can prove that he can be sober for one year, Ruben goes on a mission to give up the grog, only to find that everyone close to him in his life is standing in his way and enabling his addiction.
From his best friend and party boy Damian (Alex Dimitriades) to advertising boss Ray (Jeremy Sims) who thinks he needs a bottle of vodka to write a good campaign, to his loving yet deluded parents Susan (Robyn Nevin) and Peter (Jack Thompson) who think it’s simply ‘un-Australian’ to turn down a nice glass of Sav Blanc, Ruben is doomed to fail.
Seeking support he joins a series of AA groups and meets some real, down-to-earth Aussies who show him up for the self-absorbed wanker he has been portraying. He eventually lets them into his heart and makes a real connection with hippy chick Virginia (Harriet Dyer), who shows him another side to life where money and power don’t mean anything and that living a real and open life is what makes you truly happy.
Of course it wouldn’t be a film about a journey without a few relapses, where some of Sydney’s finest watering holes and establishments get a good plug, but in the end you really begin to warm to Ruben and start willing him on to succeed.
Ruben Guthrie is a genuinely funny film that will have a special affinity with anyone who’s experienced Sydney’s strong drinking culture…so that’s pretty much all of us!
Ruben Guthrie is showing in cinemas from 16 July.
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