Brian and Charles: Winking Welsh Comedy a Winner for All

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B+

Metaphors abound in Brian and Charles, the breakout comedy hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The film, which begins as a mockumentary before subtly shifting to fly-on-the-wall feature form, is based on a 2017 short of the same name also created by its principals, director Jim Archer (in his feature debut) working from a screenplay by David Earl and Chris Hayward, who star as the quirky characters of the title.

If themes about the importance of friendship, hope, and love land a bit on the nose, there’s no denying Brian and Charles takes an innovative approach to delivering them, even if — see above — the tack is brazenly metaphorical. Yet its distinctive charms are resonant enough to offset a slender story in what nevertheless amounts to a sweet and earnest, modern-day fable.

Brian (Earl) is a middle-aged man living alone in a small Welsh town. Initially speaking directly to the camera, Brian tells us that he makes stuff in his shed, most of it either redundant (a purse covered in pinecones) or ridiculous (an airborne cuckoo clock). He’s not exactly the town crank — he’s too sweet and doe-eyed for that — but Brian is nevertheless an identifiable eccentric in a town quietly brimming with them.

On a whim and against all reason, Brian decides to try and make a robot out of spare parts, using a washing machine for the torso, a plastic doll head, and so on. Viewers can drill deep on the symbolism here, pondering a wide range of touchstones from imaginary friends to Frankenstein monsters and how both bring outliers into the world. The film squanders its 90-minute running time on none of that, though, instead pushing forward headlong and deadpan.

Here the narrative perspective shifts. Returning home one stormy evening after a shopping trip at the town centre — where he encounters his crush, the equally shy and quirky Hazel (Louise Brealey) — Brian notices a light in his workshop. Something is in there and moving. Could it be that Brian’s robot works?

Well, yes actually, as the trailer reveals. Christened Charles (or more formerly Charles Petrescu, after a book, Wire World by RM Petrescu, spotted by Charles on Brian’s shelf), the hulking and ungainly but strangely sage robot quickly amplifies Brian’s humdrum life, exhibiting a confidence and curiosity its inventor doesn’t so much lack as keep tightly bottled. Charles will remain his secret friend and bickering roommate.

As Charles, actor Hayward does the heavy lifting, wringing humour and humanity from a robot that’s very obviously a man wearing a costume reminiscent of Promo the Robot from classic TV kids’ show Rocketship 7, only less believable. Without facial expressions and with his voice compressed, Hayward plays Charles straight, which of course, makes him funnier.

When the town bully and his bestial daughters get wind of Charles, they try to buy him for their own recreational amusement. Charles is not for sale. Conflict ensues with predictable but still satisfying results.

The ending, which pushes the robot/man suspension-of-disbelief aspect into the stratosphere, is nevertheless a heart-warmer and itself vaguely reminiscent of a peculiar plot point in director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's charming Amélie, another title in what might be termed the silly but soaring mystical movie canon, albeit without Amélie’s dazzling soundtrack.

Crowds will be pleased.

Brian and Charles. Directed by Jim Archer. Written by David Earl and Chris Hayward. Starring David Earl, Chris Hayward, Louise Brealey, James Michie, and Nina Sosanya. In theatres June 17.