Danny Deckchair (PG-13, 2004)

Danny (Rhys Ifans) is a sweet, unambitious man who is looking forward to taking his girlfriend (Justine Clark) on a camping trip for his vacation. But she cancels to spend some time with a glamorous newscaster. Danny mopes around the house, feeling unimportant and unappreciated. When all of his friends are over for a party, he decides to do something to impress everyone. So he ties a bunch of huge yellow helium balloons to a lawn chair and takes off into the sky. He floats through the night and like Dorothy landing in Oz, he comes down in a place that is completely strange to him. It's the town of Clarence. He lands in a tree owned by Glenda (Miranda Otto), a meter maid. Like Danny, she is feeling neglected and pigeonholed, so she impulsively introduces him as her professor and implies he is her boyfriend as well. Both Danny and Glenda enjoy the freedom they find in re-inventing themselves. The people in Clarence listen to Danny, at first because they are curious about him, then because they think he is a professor, and finally because they like what he has to say. He likes being listened to. He is asked to help with the campaign of a local politician. People listen to Danny -- and then he starts to listen to himself, to want to be all that the people of Clarence think he is and all that Glenda thinks he can be.

DANNY DECKCHAIR is a quirky-characters-with-accents comedy. Unlike its main character, it never quite achieves lift-off, but it is a pleasant little diversion with some very sweet moments. The slight story steals a lot of charm from its performers. Ifans and Otto are marvelously endearing and Clark is wonderfully funny as the girlfriend who enjoys the attention she gets when her boyfriend disappears into the sky. If it is lightweight and predictable, it is also undeniably a lot of fun.