The Big White

written by Collin Friesan

directed by Mark Mylod

I have to confess that Simone and I watch our fair share of slightly wacky films and this rates amongst them. Thing is, if you take a risk or two in the titles you rent, you have to be ready to hit the stop button after 30 minutes and send some films back unwatched, but you also get to see some really good, raw, edgey films that most people would miss.

Robin Williams is one of those actors who flits between the comedically quirky and the whinsingly cheesy. The Big White probably sits closer to the former, though isn't as sharp or quick to make you laugh as other films he's been in. He does tend to appear in films where there's a touch of something human going on behind a facade of the laughable; of course, he rose to stardom on the back of 'Good Morning, Vietnam'. The Big White is no different.

Married to Margaret (Holly Hunter), a woman who is afflicted with an undiagnosed, cross-breed of a psychological disorder (somewhere between tourettes, depression and schizophrenia), Paul Barnell (Robin Wiliams) is an achingly loving husband crippled by debt and despair. The storyline around this tragic couple verges on the ridiculous and is at least bizarre, but with well played support characters from Giovanni Ribisi, Woody Harrelson and Alison Lohman, it holds together enough to get you to the punchline. Indeed, like all such peculiar films, there's a gentle crescendo to an almost dramatic ending that's rounded off with a 'human moment' after which, one remarks on having had a pleasant film and flicks channels to catch the 10 o'clock news.

Don't get me wrong: this is a perfectly watchable and, even, enjoyable little film. It's won no prizes and probably never set out to. But it won't disappoint, prompting enough in the way of a few laughs here and there, set in the camera friendly wilds of Alaska and not requiring more than just over an hour and a half of your attention.