Who payed the critics

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This film barely brushes over the reality of alcoholism. Clearly the writer/director hasn't bothered to do any research on the disorder. So don't make a film about it? There are many issues with this film, but I'll address the main one which bothered me, which is the fact that withdrawal symptoms are not addressed. This is baffling, because physical dependence and withdrawal is one of the most difficult aspects of giving up alcohol. In fact, alcohol is the most dangerous substance to withdraw from and leads to sweats, shaking, tremors, fevers, dangerously high blood pressure, racing heart, among other things, and in extreme cases, life-threatening seizures, hallucinations, gastric bleeding, and death (DTs). Alcohol detox is usually done under medical supervision because it's dangerous to come off it otherwise. In fact, 33% of alcoholics who attempt to come off alcohol cold turkey without medical supervision die. That's a pretty high number. In this film, on day 1 of no alcohol, the protagonist is totally fine, and able to attend a meeting with no visible physical signs of withdrawal. This simply wouldn't happen. He would wake up shaking and barely be able to walk or get out of bed, because his neurochemistry would be highly overactive having compensated for prolonged periods of alcohol, with no alcohol present anymore to counteract it. Granted, everyone has different experiences with withdrawal in terms of variations in symptoms, but no one would get off this easy if they were physically addicted to alcohol. Then all of a sudden, it's 30 days later and he mentions insomnia as a withdrawal symptom, but withdrawal symptoms would be well and truly resolved by then (it generally takes 5-10 days for detox). Also, with physical dependence of alcohol, each withdrawal will be worse and more severe than the last (known as kindling). In Guthrie's attempt number two of giving up alcohol, he's on a plane to Prague. And again, he's totally fine. Yeah, this would not happen. He'd quite possibly be convulsing on the floor of his apartment by then. Overall, this is a highly glossed over, and inaccurate depiction of alcoholism, and doesn't do justice to the seriousness and difficulties of the disease. It's pretty much a romantic comedy mainly concerned with Guthrie's love life that deals with alcoholism on the side. If you want to watch a movie that accurately depicts the reality of alcoholism, watch Leaving Las Vegas. Frankly, sick of these movies perpetuating the misconception that alcoholism is a walk in the park, and treat it as a joke, when it couldn't be further from the truth. People need to understand the seriousness of withdrawal where actual physical dependence of alcohol has occurred. If you or anyone you know decide to come off alcohol after a long period of heavy drinking, please seek medical help if you start having withdrawal symptoms, because they can kill you. No, giving up alcohol is not a wall in the park or a plane trip to Prague, and it is irresponsible of this movie to depict it as such.

Like so many Australian films, Ruben Guthrie is thin, shallow and populated by caricatures who never really threaten to turn into fully formed characters. For a few moments here and there I thought - more hoped - that it might prove to be a serious and scathing look at Australian drinking culture. And there's one scene where there is a momentary suggestion that it might have something provocative to say about the dubious cult that is Alcoholics Anonymous (and its even more dubious success rate). But no. Ruben Guthrie not only has nothing new to say, its notions of how alcohol is viewed in Australia seem a good twenty or thirty years out of date. To give but one example: everyone in Ruben's life - his boss, his father, his best mate, his mother - refuses to take his decision to quit alcohol seriously, refuses to really accept that alcoholism could be his problem; indeed, they all actively insist he snap out of it and have another drink. Yes - just like it isn't the 21st century, educated middle-class people aren't acutely aware of the dangers of alcohol, and parents, employers or best friends never respect someone's decision not to drink. This is also a film crammed with the kind of faux-dramatic gestures beloved by writers who can't actually generate genuine drama through actual conflict. At various points Ruben smashes a bottle against his mirrored home bar, throws his mobile phone into the harbour and rips his laptop into pieces... as people almost never do in real life. All this and - just for good measure - an annoying and offensive gay stereotype mincingly played by Alex Dimitriades. The direction is distractingly show- offy at times, befitting a film that is all surface and no substance. Yet again one is left wondering what the film funding bodies saw in the script that convinced them it was worth spending the nation's money on.

Suffice it to say, Australian actors are almost always, in the least, competent.But after seeing this, the only thing I can say about it is--it's competently made, is Australia-centric, allowed some decent, professional actors to make a living, and is as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise."Writer-Director" Cowell appears to prove, once again, that good writer-directors are extremely rare. In Crowell's case, I'd say that it's the writing part that fails here. The script is competently (yet predictably) paced, but the premise itself is about as original as a corporate ad--plenty of time to 'hit the loo', knowing that you'd miss nothing of importance no matter how long you took (sorry but it's not very much about missing any actor's glowing moment-- moments usually only recognized if the film itself is a worthy vehicle for such).As for Cowell's direction, the danger here for any Australian film- maker, I think, is over saturation a la the 'Luhrmann Effect', in that, the wreckage Luhrmann made of Gatsby (offensive to virtually all those above the age of 'twenny sumpthin') is invisible against his previous success to any wannabe writer-director--while Cowell avoids the gaudy baubles and annoying soundtrack irrelevancies, the source of his inspiration is obvious. There are two likely outcomes for W/D's suffering from this: you either manage to pull off a unique, quirky, original film, or, in failure (as is most always the case), you mill out another ad-carrying vehicle for late-night TV.To me, one thing I've always liked about Australian actors is their ability to provide an absorbing level of depth to their characters, juxtaposed to what I've recognized as a profound, inexplicably acute dearth of originality coming from the Great Down-Under. Give me an Australian Actor and/or DOP any day--leave the writer/directors at home.Ultimately, perhaps it is best to view this film as a bit of worthy self-reflection for a country that still has an enormous problem with alcoholics, and that this such relevancy may be lost on outsiders, but other than that, I would never willingly pay to see this film, (I saw it for free through my streaming account) nor have wasted my time seeing it had I known what I was in for.But in the end, what drives me to critique this and other similar films so energetically is the exasperation I feel when witnessing the waste--so many good scripts out there by competent writers will be consummately ignored by so many wannabe do-it-alls with-- unfortunately for all of us--nice-sized production budgets.Thanks for providing a living wage for yet another film crew and decent local actors though. If this was merely something done to fill up the contract calendar while working on The Big Thing, then I can better understand.4 Stars--for the acting and production work. .

Wasn't expecting it but this was a very good movie. Engaging throughout. Patrick Brammall can act. Loved Abbey Lee's 'second scene.' Will leave it at that.Oh, evidently, need 10 lines to post. But I don't feel like writing 10 lines. Don't read on.Life is good for ad man Ruben Guthrie - he leads a party boy lifestyle, has a model fiancée and lives in a house on the water. He's at the top of his game, until some drunken skylarking lands Ruben at the bottom of his infinity pool, lucky to be alive. His mum hits the panic button, and then his fiancée leaves him, but not before issuing him one final challenge: If Ruben can do one year without a drink, she'll give him another chance... RUBEN GUTHRIE is the story of one man not only battling the bottle, but the city that won't let him put it down.