Nude Tuesday lives up to half its promise

When it comes to the title of the movie, it lives up to the promise. As for the rest, that’s a different story.

There’s something democratising about Nude Tuesday – everyone has to read subtitles.

There’s no audience member who has an advantage over another because the New Zealand film’s dialogue is entirely made-up, a gibberish language that sounds like something from Scandinavia but isn’t.

Everyone is in the same boat, trying to connect with its absurdist staging, spiky story and occasionally hallucinogenic vibe through the written word.

Centred on a suburban married couple at a bizarre mountain retreat in a final attempt to save their relationship, the language barrier is an obvious metaphor for the communication problems that arise when partners no longer hear each other.

So, like Laura (Jackie Van Beek) and Bruno (Damon Herriman), we have to listen, but not just with our ears.

Nude Tuesday fulfils the promise in its title. Picture: Madman Entertainment

The retreat is run by a self-aggrandising, seemingly Dionysian guru named Bjorg (Jemaine Clement), who spouts pseudo-philosophies about free love and bodily empowerment but is, shocker, as hung up and petty as the rest of the world.

At first, Laura and Bruno don’t fit the bill among their fellow retreaters. They’re in button down shirts and the others are much looser. But scratch beneath the surface of any “normie” and you discover rage, resentment and a desire to break free of their cage.

Laura and Bruno resist and embrace the retreat’s oddities and challenges in different ways, and there are plenty of moments – mossy sex, primal laugh sessions, dance catharsis, and the titular nude trek, complete with multiple dangling bits – which feed into the idea that it will ultimately be a transformative experience.

The movie plays with the trope of liminality, that the characters will be forever changed in this space so far removed from the drudgery of everyday life. The scenarios are not particularly imaginative or new, even though it definitely fulfils the promise in the title in terms of full-frontal nudity.

Jemaine Clement as the retreat’s self-aggrandising guru. Picture: Madman Entertainment

Nude Tuesday is billed as a comedy but it’s not conventionally funny. It stirs low-key chuckles but few guffaws and ever fewer “clown laughs”. The subtitles are written by UK comedian Julia Davis but it’s never so punchy that it elicits a full-throated, riotous howls.

Perhaps because the tragedy of the deeply unhappy Laura and Bruno’s marriage breakdown weighs too heavily on the story for the comedy to really take off.

Or perhaps the disconnect between the distraction of the gibberish language and the mirthful subtitles means you’re never fully immersed in the world. There’s no established practice around processing the gimmick of the gibberish (unlike a non-English language film or series), so it serves as this extra barrier between the audience and the story which never fully lifts.

Nude Tuesday, directed by Armagan Ballantyne, wanted to create a heightened world with exaggerated characters but it falls short of leaning into its absurdism.

It’s a likeable film with appealing performances but it can’t shake off the sense that it’s a stretched-out sketch. It’s only half-baked.

Rating: 2.5/5

Nude Tuesday is in cinemas now