Promoted as a kind of breakthrough for Australian comedy, The Illustrated Family Doctor looks to tread ground somewhere between Garden State, Six Feet Under and The X-Files. It has the promise of greatness: irregular ideas surrounding a black heart that are delivered with unexpected restraint. No trips to the outback here. The hapless Gary Kelp (Samuel Johnson) is a researcher working on the titular medical guide. His manager (Colin Friels) insists that it’s an easy enough job - cut and paste. Yet for Gary it becomes a major trial, not made any easier by the recent death of his father and the shocking discovery that his body had been harvested for transplants. Soon after, Gary begins to develop sympathetic diseases from the guide, his girlfriend leaves him for a man with greater promise (an unemployed artist) while his sister (Sacha Horler) attempts to guide Gary back to a kind of normalcy.

Intriguing design notwithstanding, director Kriv Stender’s approach to his own, admittedly inspired, work suggests a man to close to the subject. The protracted beginning is Johnson’s marker, a stunned approach that is more valium than mullet which robs the film of much needed warmth and humour. The not unexpected inclusion of creepy side-bar characters who play on Gary’s paranoia bring too little too late: by half-time Stender has failed to give his film a desperately needed kick to shake itself (and us) out of Gary’s mogadon world. The result is a film that should have been so much more than the unfortunate snore-fest it is. Regrettably, The Illustrated Family Doctor is about as appealing as its bookshelf namesake.

// COLIN FRASER