The Plumber

A married graduate student takes some time off to work on her thesis and play housewife to her doctor husband while living in a University apartment complex. One day, a plumber shows up unannounced claiming he needs to do routine maintenance but ends up making a terrible mess of her bathroom. Soon, she finds the plumber is always around, a bit snoopy, and may have ulterior motives. The Plumber is pretty good, especially considering it was apparently a TV movie, but it is a bit on the dull side. As seems to be a theme with Mr. Weir, this film explores the concept of The Other within the framework of a horror-thriller. I'd argue this is even more successful to me than Wave or Paris were, perhaps because it's main focus was on two individuals. It explores both sides and the ambiguity serves the narrative instead of causing confusion.

Little known Australian gem that takes the old 'girl stalked by psycho' theme and gives it a fun twist with some astute social commentary. A highly intellectual, educated women suddenly finds herself being manipulated by a slovenly, low class plumber. She is an expert at primitive cultures, yet is unable to deal with her own 'civilized' culture. As he tears away at her bathroom, he also tears away at the line that seperates the classes. Playfully pokes at everything from how much control one really has on their enviroment, to how vulnerable we ALL are and how no one is really that far removed or 'above' anyone else. Also aptly displays how our social mores, customs, and status are only their as long as everyone respects them. Yet the best thing about this sleeper is how everyone, including her friends and husband, are so caught up in their own little worlds that they cannot fully fathom the extent of her fear. Bringing to light the old adage of us all having our own 'private hell'. Mono sound and a bit of a 'cop out' ending are the only detractions.

What a straight-up quirky little gem from Peter Weir. Proof indeed that you do not need big budgets to make celluloid winners. Weir has such a great talent for drawing out the extraordinary from the most ordinary of scenarios. A bush-walk that defies explanation at HANGING ROCK, a country town with a lurid secret in THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS, oveflowing domestic storm-water in THE LAST WAVE and here, the humble PLUMBER, or maybe the stranger from Hell?

Filmed for the most part in Jill Cowper's (Judy Morris's) apartment, if not the bathroom itself, her nightmare starts when she has need to call a tradesman to fix faulty plumbing in her bathroom. Whether Max has multiple pre-emptive social issues to deal with or simply reacts later to her upper-class dismissive treatment of his blue-collar status is not made clear. In the bathroom however he rules unchallenged and Jill finds herself at the mercy of what appears to be a serially disturbed tradesman.

Less of a thriller and more a black comedy, Weir places his protaganists each in unfamilar locales. Jill, a highly educated anthropologist, married to a doctor and studying indigenous behavioural activity has absolutely no idea how to respond to this intrusive workman who stops for 10 minute tea-breaks every five minutes and composes a rock-song for which he asks her considered opinion. While the situations thrown up are critically funny at times (Kants gives his greatest performance here) an air of extreme unease pervades proceedings. By degrees, the bathroom is totally destroyed as Max works to compensate for that social-class chip on his shoulder, the size of a Redwood! The scene of the dinner party wherein an overseas guest is trapped under collapsed rubble in the bathroom is a hoot.

After Morris has hit rock-bottom and realises that fear is the key, she devises a way to get back at him. Some viewers regard the end as "soft" if not a total cop-out. What it actually shows is that just sometimes, fighting fire with fire works!

THE PLUMBER was filmed in Adelaide and originally received limited theatrical release. It was not until it was shown on television however that the "legend" of this great little movie was founded and its popularity mushroomed.

Not to be missed under any circumstances.

Hearing about this great little film from many people, I spent tireless hours on retail sites tracking a VHS copy down. Finally I caught a cheap copy on Half.com and it came several days later, (cut to one month later, when Weir's "Cars that Ate Paris" debuted on easily-accessible DVD format with "The Plumber" as a double feature. Go figure.) But I sat down to watch it and proceeded to laugh for quite some time.

The story is basically about this Aussie anthropologist studying Aboriginal tribes as her boring nutritionist husband is constantly talking shop. She's constantly left to her solitude and values her privacy, which makes it all the more irritating when a strange plumber invades her life. Somewhat threatening and somewhat a misunderstood doof, this plumber spends hours holed up in her bathroom doing nothing but lounging around, hammering shower tiles, writing folk songs and ripping pipes from the walls.

It's a precursor to "The Cable Guy," but don't let that discourage you, (I liked "Cable Guy" myself). It's funny as hell and has a great ending. I'll even forgive it for the nutritionist's ponderous subplot that goes nowhere. It's only 79 minutes--whaddaya got to lose?

Movie: A

This obscure Peter Weir TV movie from the late 1970s is a little dated, but still very entertaining and suspenseful. The three main actors (Judy Morris, Ivor Kants and Robert Coleby) aren't exactly household names here in Australia but will be familiar to most TV viewers over the age of 30 for their roles in various soap operas and the like. All three are excellent here in what could be their best work. Morris and Coleby play married academics. Coleby is distracted and concerned about an exciting career opportunity, Morris is currently working at home engrossed in her studies of New Guinea culture, and is timid and less confident socially than her husband. One day the plumber (Kants) arrives at their flat, and from then on her life will never be the same again. Kants is charming but rough, and very odd. A Dylanesque folk singer with a "Liberals = less tax" message on the back of his jacket (Non-Australians note the Liberal Party is our equivalent of the Republicans in the US or Conservative Party in Britain), he plays mind games with Morris, who becomes increasingly uncomfortable, and ultimately terrorized. Weir keeps things quite ambiguous and we never really know whether Kants is a dangerous psychopath or just the biggest pain-in-the-arse you could ever wish not to meet. I enjoyed 'The Plumber' a lot, it's a very effective low-budget, low key thriller shot through with plenty of black humour.