The best thing about local TV drama, is the possibility of seeing your home town - perhaps even your self - on the screen. When I started watching The Insiders Guide to Happiness on DVD, I didn't know (or had forgotten) that it was filmed in the suburbs and streets near my home.
It's a great little ensemble drama set in urban New Zealand, about a group of 20-something and 30-something Kiwis who find happiness in various ways. It's a little surreal, a little philosophical, and doesn't make me cringe to watch it (i.e. it's not Welcome to Paradise - go here for an idea of how bad Paradise was compared to say, Flight of the Conchords).
There's a lager-head who is, temporarily, the reincarnation of a time-travelling Buddhist monk; a needy young woman who wins 6 million bucks on the day her boyfriend leaves her for a skanky ho; a nice Samoan boy who meets the love of his life just before being hit by an ambulance, and spends several episodes as a ghost; and the woman whose unborn child sends her txt messages.
As riveting as the story of The Insiders Guide to Happiness was, I couldn't help being distracted by the urge to identify every cafe and street the characters appeared in. I suppose this kind of thing doesn't affect the residents of oft-filmed locations like New York, London or Paris.
2 comments:
It is cool to read or watch something that takes place near where you live.
yeah, it's probably one reason why the Lord of the Rings trilogy was so popular in NZ.
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