Written by Max Dann and Andrew Knight, and directed by Mark Joffe, the Australian film Spotswood is a disarming slice of whimsy couched in the kind of stylistic and thematic eccentricities that bring to mind many of the films Britain's Ealing studio churned out in the late forties and early fifties. The presence of a soft-spoken, very English Anthony Hopkins in the lead role further reinforces the film's aesthetic ties. Set in 1966 in and around the Melbourne suburb of Spotswood, Hopkins plays Errol Wallace, a dapper time and motion expert who is tasked with overhauling the production efficiency of The Balls Moccasin factory, a cluttered, dysfunctional hive of inactivity staffed by a collection of oddballs who clearly prefer the gossipy cameraderie of the canteen to the rigors of the work bench. In the course of his subsequent cost-cutting, staff-culling tenure, Wallace's heretofore unflappable indifference becomes seriously compromised through his exposure to the private and personal lives of the some of the factory's key personel. While it may be a forgone conclusion that ultimately it is he who undergoes the most significant metamorphosis, the joyride the film provides before that denouement is as wacky as it is entertaining. Co-stars Ben Mendelsohn, Alwyn Kurts, Bruno Lawrence, Toni Collette and Russell Crowe are perfect foils for Hopkins' stiff upper lip stoicism.
