No. 2

Herald rating: * * * *

As a New Zealand film it's unconventional in its setting, in its subject, in its origins. You don't get too many local films set in in Mt Roskill, films about families, or by New Zealand playwrights adapting their own works for the screen.

Director-writer Toa Fraser's utterly charming No. 2 does conform to one New Zealand film convention though - the European girlfriend.

Braindead had one (the Spanish senorita from the dairy). So did Whale Rider (Cliff Curtis' character returns to the East Coast with German fraulein in tow).

And now No. 2 has a Dane named Maria (Swedish actress Novotny) quite literally crashing the party. Friends who have seen the original one-woman play (I haven't) can't recall whether Danish Maria existed before.

But just as certain Danes have caused a bit of a problem in some parts of the world in the past week, Maria feels like bit of a sore-thumb here.

Not only does she help to cause a spot of fisticuffs between the two male cousins among the gathered grandchildren of Fijian-Kiwi matriarch Nanna Maria (venerated African-American actress Ruby Dee), the wide-eyed Novotny also lets the side down a little on the acting front.

But if some uneven performances are the slight undoing of No.2, it's still a generous-in-spirit, hilarious and affecting ensemble drama, which despite a seemingly vast cast of characters manages to show what makes nearly all of them tick.

It is, of course, dominated, as the family is, by Nanna Maria. Dee strikes some lovely notes between cantankerous and aristocratic battleaxe, a widow too-long-in-grieving and the head of the clan who wants to throw a feast to name her "successor".

And she only wants grandchildren ("not my kids, they're useless) and no outsiders (save for her Danish namesake).

She's got a formidable to-do list for her grandkids, including denuding the backyard of pine trees and getting a suckling pig, which is duly delivered with a hitch - it's still alive.

Of course, the grandchildrens' parents soon hear about the event and can't resist sticking their oars in - which also allows Pio Terei some humorous scenes as a scenic tour bus driver trying to explain to the occasional German that no, Mt Roskill is not Mt Doom on a fine day.

Actually, Mt Roskill has probably never looked lovelier or more mystical, care of Leon Narbey's cinematography.

Some of Fraser's scenes still betray their stage origins, occasionally lacking momentum in the storytelling. But the performances he gets from the likes of Dee, as well as the young cast playing her grandkids (especially Emile and Naufahu), give No.2 a vitality.

So does Don McGlashan's score, which with its mix of opera, traditional music, hip-hop and more is sure to make for one neighbour-worrying soundtrack album.

As for the film, you'll leave smiling but with conflicted emotions - do you call grandma first or go out for a big feed? And if you do, do you order the pork?

CAST: Ruby Dee, Mia Blake, Miriama McDowell, Taungaroa Emile, Tuva Novotny, Rene Naufahu, Antony Starr, Tanea Heke, Nathaniel Lees, Pio Terei, Xavier Horan
DIRECTOR: Toa Fraser
RATING: PG, sexual references
RUNNING TIME: 93 mins
SCREENING: Rialto