Bunny and the Bull: 4 Stars
I am not a fan of the Mighty Boosh. I don’t find its brand of goofy/surreal humour particularly amusing and I am left slightly bemused by the cult of personality that has sprung up around Noel Fielding. The chances of me enjoying Bunny and the Bull were therefore rather slender. Directed by Paul King (who, as the promotional poster informs you, directed the Mighty Boosh) and starring Simon Farnaby, Richard Ayoade, Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding (all alumni of the Mighty Boosh franchise), Bunny and the Bull has been marketed as a feature length film that will entertain the same demographic as its small-screen forebear.
The plot takes place on two levels; the first follows the rigid daily routine of the agoraphobe Stephen Turnbull, or Bull, played by Edward Hogg who after discovering a rat infestation is faced with the daunting prospect of leaving his house in the first time in a year.
This disruption to his ordered life leads Stephen to recall a European road trip taken a year earlier with his wayward friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby) an easy-going, alcoholic, gambling addicted womanizer. Stephen becomes increasingly unstable as memories from their European jaunt begin to physically intrude into his life. The road trip begins as an extension of Stephen’s tragically monotonous life with visits to a range of obscure European museums. However, after meeting Eloise (Veronica Echegui), a beautiful Spanish waitress, in a dire Polish seafood restaurant their trip is transformed into a sexually-charged race to get to Eloise’s Andalusian hometown in time for the annual festival. A love-triangle forms around Elouise and Bunny and Bull’s friendship becomes strained. Just as it seems that their friendship has broken down entirely, Bunny attempts to realise his drunken dreams of being a matador in the dreamscape of rural Spain. Stephen’s latter-day confrontation with Bunny’s ill-fated ambitions leads to a cathartic, if somewhat soppy, moment at the film’s end, as he rids himself of his demons.
There are moments of inspired script writing, such as when Stephen warns that if Bunny dabbles in bull-fighting he will be ‘ripped apart like a cheap velcro wallet’. What makes the film compelling is not the script, the plot or the acting, but the beautiful way the film is pieced together with an attention to detail. From the opening credits onwards the film is constantly visually stimulating. The film is obviously a labour of love with every scene including an element of the whimsical: we chart the progress of the trio on a modern day pirate’s map of europe and their journey through the Swiss Alps takes place in a snow dome in Stephen’s apartment. The injection of these small poetic details make the film a pleasure to watch; even for those who are not die-hard Mighty Boosh fans.
Release: 27 November
Director: Paul King
Starring: Edward Hogg, Simon Farnaby, Veronica Ecghegui, Noel Fielding
