Director: Jim Archer
Screenplay: David Earl, Chris Hayward
Starring: David Earl, Chris Hayward, Louise Brealey, Jamie Michie, Nina Sosanya, Lynn Hunter, Lowri Izzard, Mari Izzard, Cara Chase, Sunil Patel, Rishi Nair, Colin Bennett
Country: UK/US
Running Time: 90 minutes
Year: 2022
BBFC Certificate: PG
Let’s get this out of the way without any prevarication. Brian and Charles is a delightful triumph, quirky, eccentric, hilarious and moving. If you have any kind of predilection for classic British comedy, it is a must-see, especially the kind that leverages the quintessentially English awkwardness of simply trying to function in public.
David Earl plays Brian, a hermit-like inventor of ridiculous contraptions that rarely work. In a moment of wild inspiration, he takes a mannequin head and an old washing machine, bolts them together and builds a robot. There’s more to it than that of course; we briefly see the robot’s spleen which wouldn’t be out of place in Wakanda, which in itself is hilarious considering Brian’s other inventions.
Charles the robot (Chris Hayward) is fabulous. In a pastiche of Short Circuit, he reads a dictionary and randomly starts naming things. He asks the really big questions: How far does the outside go? (Past the tree?). Where are birds going? And so on, before he develops into a teenager, playing loud music and demanding to go to Honolulu.
Brian and Charles is indescribably ridiculous and infinitely loveable. There isn’t a cynical bone rattling around in Charles’ tummy. Developed from their own short film in 2017, it’s confident and deftly written by Earl and Hayward. Despite leaning into the utter daftness, it’s affectionate and you root for Brian, Charles and Hazel (Louise Brealey) to succeed. Hazel is Brian’s would-be girlfriend, but of course, it’s complicated.
It’s not quite on the level of Withnail and I, but that it can even tease a similar balance of laugh-out gags and sentiment is testament to its quality.
The film plays out as a robo-com-mockumentary, an ever-present film crew capturing some of Brian’s daily routine. Why? No idea, just go with it. David Earl has worked with Ricky Gervais and the format is familiar. Awkward pauses and glances direct to camera, etc, but Earl is more likeable than Brent, or Partridge for that matter, and we are never invited to laugh at him. It occasionally forgets there is supposed to be an unseen film-crew, though that mask only slips when the narrative is forced to give Earl and Hayward a clear stage. It’s a lovely, assured performance from the two of them.
The only real shortcoming is village bully Eddie. Despite Jamie Mitchie’s simmering menace, wife Nina Sosanya having one of the best lines (how to identify a cow) and a few upsetting scenes (“Perilous!”, as Charles would say), there’s no escaping that Eddie and his clan stretch feasibility. A necessary jolt to move the story on.
Can feasibility even be stretched in a film about a bloke who builds a robot from fly-tipped scrap? Yes it can, because watching Brian finding genuine joy in companionship is wonderful and we want more of it. Even if it is with a washing machine that likes eating cabbages.
EXTRA FEATURES
Extras are thin, with a couple of in-character interviews, which are diverting enough, but the gag reel is far more fun. Earl and Hayward’s performance is so organic, even when they’re screwing up, it feels like part of the film. Conspicuous by absence though is any mention of the history. The radio plays and short film would have been fascinating topics.
