Guest House Paradiso – Film Review

Which means really only one thing. Whether they’re running a hotel, ducking from jets of vomit, espousing the virtues of not doing one’s business on their bedsheets, or even saving the “Nipples from Naples” from a jilted fiancé, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson are a duo not to be missed. And especially not in Blu-Ray, where every hook up one’s nose is can be seen in painfully brilliant detail.

Guest House Paradiso – Film Review

“Mice. Basque Separatist Mice.”

A film which is one Ritalin away from the Muppets after a tray of Jaegerbombs, the ‘Bottom’ comedy duo of Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson in their film outing has finally been elevated to glorious Blu-Ray. Although in terms of the slapstick and comedic furore, it more resembles ‘The Young Ones’ than ‘Bottom’, it nevertheless gives the characters of the latter a riotous filmic extravaganza: at its worst an explosive mixture of zany moments, at its best, dark, quintessentially-British, and effortlessly silly. In short, what better way to waste an hour and a half?

Owners of a disintegrating hotel next to a nuclear power plant,

“Richie” Twat (Rik Mayall) – it’s pronounced Thwaite… – and “Eddie” Elizabeth Ndingombaba (Adrian Edmondson) have found themselves in dire need of money, in charge of the older Mrs. Foxfur (Fenella Fielding), and on a daily basis corralling the alcoholic chef and psychotic waiter into obeying simple instructions. Therefore, when the “Nice family” arrive, shortly followed by renowned Italian actress Gina Carbonara (Hélène Mahieu), having eloped from her husband, so ensues a farrago of venereal vassalage, enough vomit to drown the British Isles, a delusion of dusky young maidens, contaminated cuisine, and enough bruises and scrapes to warrant a new A&E department being built.

In their hotel (which even the local peasants deny exist), it’s fair to say that Mayall and Edmondson are on fire. As far as masters of physical comedy go, they make a Charlie Chaplin performance look like a Disney soirée, and there’s something infinitely loveable in both their individual performances and their chaotic rapport. Both actors being the charm of their TV selves and certainly try their best to make their insanity last a full hour-and-a-half, and to be fair mostly succeed.

They lose a bit of charm as the film uses camera trickery and a slightly more forgiving budget than the TV show offered, and as such feeling a little less spontaneous, but the performances themselves are still career-defining, it’s simply the medium which lets them down ever so slightly. Yes, it’s not the tightest of films, and the pace suffers a little as sketch characters try and do service to an entire film, however the plot is nevertheless so gloriously close to becoming a Greek tragedy you’re surprised no-one has shagged their own mother yet.

Really the only thing that gets underplayed is the fact that British hotels are in fact far more worse.

The guest cast and Adrian Edmondson as director both do terrific jobs too, not just realising the madness of the script but accelerating it into lightspeed. Fenella Fielding is a delight as Mrs Foxfur, the right level of ditsy and elegant, and Simon Pegg’s first film role as Mr Nice is restrained but full of comedic angst; admittedly, the subplot between Hélène Mahieu’s character, whose jilted husband Gino Bolognese (Vincent Cassel) is the far more enrapturing one from a dramatic point of view, but as a whole the cast round out the main pair and elevate the dinginess of the setting. As far as “serious” actors go, Bill Nighy and Kate Ashfield’s irascible couple are there, though also their own unique brand of chaos, and by the bucketful, meaning there’s also a truckload of talent involved too – I say again, THE Fenella Fielding.

Edmondson leaves a little to be desired as director, his style almost a little too acquiescent for the high-pace rigmaroles of his and Mayall’s script. Yet, a lot of his other artistic decisions do help the comedy lands outrageously well, from his casting to the murky vividness of the hotel itself. Subtlety was never going to be the order of the day, and he acknowledges that like a wrecking ball acknowledges the wall its destroying, violence reigning supreme more than any camera flourish or set extravaganza. Regardless though, for all the surreal end result is a little patchy, it’s constantly entertaining and taps into the asset of using its actors almost like human puppets.

And even though my research into the subject has been fairly minimal,

I can’t think of no other films which have a comedy of errors on a motorbike during the opening minutes of the film, and certainly none which are so fantastically silly and uproarious.

As a limited edition release, it feels slightly odd considering no one feature is particularly explosive or stellar, mainly just interviews and trailers. Yet you’ll have got your money’s worth just for the film and Blu-ray transfer, so forking out for some run-of-the-mill special features is hardly a deterrent, just a missed opportunity. The documentary is the main one of interest, filmed back in 1999, where you get to see both the workings of the set itself and also Fenella Fielding try to come up with enough adjectives to describe matters – you don’t need to know the ins and outs of making fake vomit, but rest assured that the feature devotes a good chunk of its thirty-five minute runtime to the task too. 

With the recent ‘W’ retrospective on the ‘Bottom’ TV show,

focusing in nice part on the bromance of Edmondson and Mayall, it’s a slight shame that this feature doesn’t really reflect on Mayall’s legacy, but it’s really the only thing missing. The outtakes provide the nearest thing to that in a way, showcasing the glorious friendship of Mayall and Edmondson, because what better way to remember Mayall than observing how his own personality had all the tact of a nuclear holocaust.

The shorter interviews, with Simon Pegg, composer Colin Towns, editor Sean Barton, and production designer Tom Brown are nice little inclusions though. The Pegg documentary is an especially fun and honorific feature, given he and Nick Frost are sort of a Mayall and Edmondson for the current generation.

Which means really only one thing. Whether they’re running a hotel, ducking from jets of vomit, espousing the virtues of not doing one’s business on their bedsheets, or even saving the “Nipples from Naples” from a jilted fiancé, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson are a duo not to be missed. And especially not in Blu-Ray, where every hook up one’s nose is can be seen in painfully brilliant detail.

“We’re British, you know: we invented cold showers to stop people masturbating!”