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Sometimes you have to get lost in order to find yourself. That’s the premise of this Australian comedy, which should follow its own advice and be a bit more original and daring. Rhys Ifans, who stole Notting Hill from Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, is the title hero; he mixes cement by day and in his spare time builds a human slingshot or the like. His girlfriend, Trudy (Justine Clarke), disrupts the home front when she flirts with a big-shot sportscaster (Rhys Muldoon). Danny, fed up with it all, ties a bunch of balloons to a lawn chair (the real-life event that inspired the film) and floats off. He crashes in a small township miles away, where Glenda (Miranda Otto), an introverted meter maid, takes him in and a new but cinematically familiar life beckons. Otto (Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings) and Ifans give it their best, and Clarke is hilarious. But writer/director Jeff Balsmeyer’s dialogue is gaseous enough to launch a fleet of deckchairs. (90 minutes)
BY TOM MEEK
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