Working Dog on the trail of gen Y

ROB Sitch and his partners have trained their comic sights on the quarter-life crisis.

Rob Sitch

ROB Sitch has directed three films in 15 years. His first two -- The Castle and The Dish -- rank among the most commercially successful films Australia has produced.

And anecdotally, The Castle remains the most-loved Australian comedy in recent history, a people's favourite and cultural signpost across all demographic sectors.

As Sitch prepares for the release of his third film, Any Questions for Ben?, tomorrow, one might ask why he hasn't been more prolific.

But Sitch and his Working Dog team Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro and Jane Kennedy have been busy enough producing strong television. They have created Frontline, The Hollowmen, All Aussie Adventures and Thank God You're Here, and the big-selling Jetlag spoof travel guides. They didn't need to make a film. But they have. Eventually.

Sitch concedes the team, credited as co-writers on this film, were, as always, "suspicious of anything we write and that we don't have a high level of enthusiasm for after four or five drafts".

They're not afraid to abandon poor concepts. Sitch cites Up in the Air director Jason Reitman's comment that you have to write all the bad drafts out of you first.

"There is something in that," Sitch says. "You have to write a lot because you just don't make enough mistakes in one concept. We often look back at things and go, 'Oh, of course that's why we didn't like it.'

"The other thing for us is everyone has to want to do it," he adds.

You can see why the team wanted to make this film. It is a love letter to their home town Melbourne, full of glossy panoramas from helicopters and montages highlighting what one newspaper described without irony as Melbourne's "coveted liveability".

In another regard, Any Questions for Ben? might be Working Dog's own mid-life crisis film. It features a 27-year-old brand marketing tyro, Ben (played by the always impressive comic star Josh Lawson) having his own "quarter-life crisis". For anyone beyond their freewheeling single days, it feels melancholic.

It is also a departure from Working Dog's previous films in that it is, say, more Woody Allen than Mel Brooks. Any Questions for Ben? is a slicker, neater construction opting for screwball comedy banter ahead of physical humour or caricature.

Melbourne remains the core of its concept though, Sitch notes.

"I reckon with movies you've got to have a sense of place," he says. "You've got to know where you are."

Sitch is alert to the minutiae of Melbourne while noting the more obvious transformations that have happened to the CBD and sporting events such as the Australian Open, Spring Racing Carnival and the Formula One grand prix.

"If you live in Melbourne now you spend half your time with a lanyard around your neck," he says.

"That was one of the rhythms of Melbourne that we really noticed. If you're in your mid-late 20s, you're probably attending all these big events, so I thought we could take two or three big events and integrate them into their lives, because that's what they do."

Sitch posits: "The big cities of the prosperous West have kind of reinvented themselves and Melbourne has become a poster child of it."

The southern city has done so "in ways that I don't think anyone could have predicted".

"The least interesting part of the CBD, laneways with garbage skips, were reinvented. Who would have predicted that? We were still busy building opera houses, and graffiti artists were telling us where to look!"

The writers also noticed a change in the people they were casting in their shows. Younger actors or comedians were out-of-towners who "could really live a global itinerant lifestyle, never cook, not have an address, travel the world".

That's where gen Y melded with Melbourne; they're taking full advantage of city transformations. Sitch, 49, laughs and says he looks at them with "envy, mostly".

Consequently, the notion of today's "choice paralysis" due to too many options confronting gen Ys made perfect sense in the romantic comedy setting. They stumbled across the "quarter-life crisis".

"It's a reversal of where people made big decisions early and then got to 50 and asked if they were right," Sitch says.

"Now (gen Ys) stall the big decisions in the interest of travelling the world and enjoying themselves and then freak out thinking they haven't made any big decisions. It's a funny reversal."

Lawson says he felt "a really personal connection in a way that they really understood what we were getting up to and the problems we had".

He would say that; he's the star of the film. But in person, Lawson has the energy and rapid conversational style that reflects where he is, constantly jetting between the US and Australia for work, including a regular role on US corporate satire House of Lies (which has been renewed for a second series but not yet screened here) and a lead role opposite Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis in the new Jay Roach (Meet the Parents) film Dog Fight.

His gen Y skittishness was even reflected in his connection to the film. Working Dog wrote it for Lawson as the lead. He didn't realise as much -- "I told Rob I'd be happy to do catering" -- until after a few years of discussions.

Lawson says he learned to speak to Sitch "like a mate". "So when he asked what was going on, I wouldn't just give him the two-dimensional version of the story," Lawson says.

"I would tell him I don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life, this business is such a hustle and I'm packing everything up into suitcases every three months and I really want to settle. They really got that lament in the film."

The lament sees Ben toss and turn, churning his many choices but regretting that he remains as substantial as a vodka mixer. His dilemma is starkest at his old school's careers night where Ben's marketing career is nothing against that of Rachael Taylor's Alex, a human-rights lawyer based in Yemen.

Sitch's headmaster character asks students, "Any questions for Ben?" You can guess the response, although Lawson notes his director "hides his envy in the celebration of choice. It never feels like he's judging the gen Y choices".

Ben's friends have little sympathy other than Christian Clark's dependable and dim Andy. Sitch and casting director Jane Kennedy have assembled a great comedy cast, including stand-up Felicity Ward as the straight-talking Emily, Snowtown's AACTA Award winner Daniel Henshall as Nick and Rob Charlton, Ed Kavalee, Alan Brough, Tracy Mann, David James and Lachy Hulme.

Surely, Lawson must receive lots of sympathetic hugs after screenings? "No! Women want to come up and slap me (saying) 'You were so frustrating! We wanted you to pick up the phone, idiot. But guys just say 'Dude, how was it driving that (Lamborghini)?"

Clark smiles; he is getting the high-fives: "They love Andy."

"The response has been interesting," Lawson adds. "People get moved in strange ways. I don't think you have to be in your 20s to connect with Ben's story."

Sitch smiles recalling the reaction of audience members to this slick dramatisation of their choice paralysis as a love story.

"The one reaction we're getting is 'Wow, it made me think'," he says. "So it's on their mind."

Read Evan Williams's take on Any Questions for Ben? in Saturday's Review.