Perth Festival audiences will be keen to see the premiere of How to Please a Woman, which was filmed around Fremantle and features stunning shots of Leighton Beach.
Award-winnning director Renee Webster says the idea for the script came from many years of enjoying early morning swims at Leighton and the after-swim camaraderie in beach changerooms.
The result is a witty comedy-drama which often had preview audiences laughing out loud.
The film stars British actor Sally Phillips, known for her role in all three Bridget Jones movies
She is excellent as prim, 50-ish Gina, who is struggling with her sexless marriage, and, to add to her bruised feelings, has just lost her job.
She collects her things and goes home, where she is momentarily taken aback when a handsome young man (Sydney actor Alexander England) knocks on her door, strips off his shirt and announces, “ You’ve got me for two hours. I’ll do anything you want.”
He has been hired as a birthday joke by her changeroom girlfriends and is taken aback when she responds: “Can you clean my house?”
From there Gina comes up with a plan for a new business: An all-male house-cleaning service – with benefits.
“There are a lot of women who like the thought of a man cleaning their house, and I think they’ll pay for it – for the cleaning, or for sex,” she tells her friends.
The film treads lightly on the subtleties, and the legalities, of Gina’s unorthodox business, which she staffs with men from a removal service which has just gone into receivership.
It also touches perceptively on the feelings and needs of older women who often feel sexually invisible.
The Australian cast includes Erik Thomson, Tasma Walton, Roz Hammond, Cameron Daddo and Caroline Brazier, who also plays a lead role in the Festival play Mary Stuart.
How to Please a Woman will show in the LotteryWest film season at UWA’s Somerville Audiorium from Monday, December 27 to Sunday, January 2.
Watch the trailer…
I’ve always enjoyed house cleaning!
You funny man!