Errol Wallace (Anthony Hopkins) is a business consultant hired to look into longtime family firm Balls, who have made shoes and moccasins for decades, based in the Melbourne suburb of Spotswood. One interview with the elderly owner Mr Ball (Alwyn Kurts) makes it obvious where the problem lies. The staff are treated well but the machinery is old and shabby. A young worker, Carey (Ben Mendelsohn) is asked to assist Errol, and agrees because the boss's daughter Cheryl (Rebecca Rigg) is on the review staff. He fancies her, failing to notice local girl Wendy (Toni Collette) rather nearer to hand...

Spotswood (released in the US as The Efficiency Expert in a re-edited version, of which more below) is a small, quiet film, but a charming one. It wasn't the first film, either in Australia or the UK, to invoke the spirit of Ealing films, that of many of their most successful comedies. For one, it's a period piece. The film is set in the 1960s, though precisely when is left vague. This Spotswood is a place where much of what we think of as the Sixties passed it by: there's a passing reference to Vietnam, but no sex, drugs or any kind of counterculture. (Spotswood is a real place, a suburb of Melbourne, and much of the film was shot there, though other suburbs such as Williamston were also used. The factory exterior is in Dandenong.) It's a film where the ordinary people of the town come together to thwart the plans of the outsider. And despite Anthony Hopkins in the lead role and top-billed, the film makes more sense as an ensemble piece (at least in its original version, again see below). In the ensemble are some names who would go on to bigger things: this was Toni Collette's first cinema acting role, at the age of seventeen, and Russell Crowe's second. Other cast members in their teens or barely out of it but were more experienced, include Ben Mendelsohn in a nominal lead role, and Rebecca Rigg as Balls's aspirant model daughter, who gives some additional shadings to ultimately a nothing role.

On the other hand, Hopkins, by far the biggest name in the cast, tends to unbalance the film. We get that Errol is a cold fish and is meant to be. Even his wife Caroline (Angela Punch McGregor in a thankless role) knows this. But at times Errol comes over as a study in rock-solid emotional repression, as if he's a dry run for Hopkins's great role as Stevens in The Remains of the Day a few years later.

Supporting them is strong and very solid featured remaining cast. Other than Hopkins, another imported name was Bruno Lawrence, coming to the end of his decade-long run of acting in what seemed like every other films coming out of New Zealand, though this wasn't his first excursion across the Tasman Strait – he'd worked for director Mark Joffe on his previous film Grievous Bodily Harm (1988) as well as for Nadia Tass in Rikky and Pete (also 1988) and, probably the biggest film he was in internationally, the Kylie vehicle The Delinquents (1989). (Lawrence was to work for Joffe again, on his next film Cosi (1996) but had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Lawrence died in 1995 at the age of fifty-four, and Cosi is dedicated to his memory.)

Director Mark Joffe, born in Belarus (then part of the USSR, in 1956), who co-wrote the script with Max Dann, had made just that one feature film previously and a lot of television work back to the start of the 1980s. Spotswood was shot on a very low budget between July and September 1990. It was one of five features funded by the Australian Film Finance Corporation, of budgets up to A$5 million each, nicknamed the "chook raffle".  (The Last Days of Chez Nous, directed by Gillian Armstrong, was another one.) The interior of the Balls Factory was a very large and detailed set, which no doubt helped production designer Chris Kennedy win his Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award.

Spotswood did respectable business in Australian cinemas though largely played overseas on VHS or television broadcast. Miramax picked up the rights to the film overseas and released it in a re-edited version under the title The Efficiency Expert. (The UK gave the film a limited release under the original title in Joffe's cut, or so it seems – 95:00 according to the BBFC while the present Blu-ray is 96:38. The difference could be explained by different distributor logos.)

Spotswood had a higher number of Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards nominations in its year than any other: nine, though they didn't include Anthony Hopkins or Mark Joffe as director. However, the big winner that year was Proof, with Spotswood taking home awards for Chris Kennedy's production design, Tess Schofield's costume design and Ellery Ryan's cinematography. Spotswood was also nominated for Best Film, Best Actor in a Lead Role (Mendelsohn), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Toni Collette), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Alwyn Kurts), Best Screenplay and Best Editing (Nicholas Beauman). Plenty of people wondered, a few years later, how Collette had come from seemingly nowhere to make Muriel's Wedding, clearly forgetting that they'd given her an AFI nomination before then. (The winner was Fiona Press in the now-obscure film Waiting.)

Spotswood is a film of undeniable charm, but something so intentionally old-fashioned may not have been the draw it was hoped in the early 1990s. It'll please an hour and a half of your time though.

Spotswood is number twenty-one of Umbrella's Sunburnt Screens line, released on Blu-ray on a disc encoded for all regions. The film has a PG rating in the UK, the USA and Australia: clearly not even Miramax dubbed in a F-word to raise the film to a PG-13 or national equivalent, so as to avoid the impression the film was a kids' movie.

The film was shot in 35mm colour and the transfer is in the intended aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and derives from a 4K scan of original film materials. Ellory Ryan gave the film an intended warm palette, especially in the scenes inside the factory, so as to emphasise the warmth and familial feel of the piece. Other parts of the film are cooler. The transfer looks fine, with colours strong and detailed and grain filmlike.

The soundtrack is the original Dolby Stereo, rendered as LPCM 2.0, playing in surround. It's not the most adventurous sound mix out there, mainly restricting the surrounds to Ricky Fataar's music score, but it's clear and well-balanced. English subtitles for the hard-of-hearing are available on both versions of the film.

Audio commentary with Mark Joffe, Chris Kennedy and Ellery Ryan
This is a new commentary track, which despite the billing is mostly Mark Joffe, with some additions by the other two. The three men are clearly proud of this film from over thirty years ago, and this is a warm and certainly listenable track, though if you're into nuts and bolts about film production this isn't the one to go to – in fact, by listening to the audio interviews with Joffe and producer Richard Brennan (see below) you learn rather more in that regard.

The Efficiency Expert (90:04 with introduction, 89:18 without introduction)
The US cut of the film, based on the same restoration of film materials. Given that that's the case, I don't see why they can't have transferred this version in the correct ratio of 1.85:1 as well, but instead it's 4:3. It is presented with an optional short introduction by Mark Joffe.

This version isn't very much shorter than the original cut, but seems to assume that its audience doesn't know much about Australia – hence a humorous opening caption and a post-opening-credits one spelling out the fact that we're in Melbourne. However, the re-editing changes all sorts of emphases. While the original cut is really an ensemble piece and Errol isn't immediately onscreen, the US cut removes most of this preamble and goes straight after the credits to his opening scene. This establishes much more firmly that he is the principal character. So, for example, the opening meet-cute between Carey and Wendy, expressed via a bicycle race, is moved elsewhere and much shortened. The difference between the two cuts is in the titles: an ensemble piece named after where it is set as opposed to an individual story with other subplots reduced, named after that principal character or rather his occupation.

All New Memories of Spotswood (13:34)
Mark Joffe talks to camera about his memories of making Spotswood, with contributions from Ellory Ryan and Chris Kennedy. Inevitably there's a lot of overlap with the commentary track. Joffe distinguishes the film from a "little man against the system" story: it's rather a story of a little system against a bigger system. As Joffe talks about his casting of Collette, Crowe and others, we see extracts from their interviews in the featurette made at the time. Talking of which...

Archival Making-Of Featurette (8:30)
This is along similar lines to many a making-of, with voiceover narration, on-set interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. So we do get to hear from people not otherwise involved with the extras on this disc, and in some cases no longer alive. These include Ben Mendelsohn, Toni Collette, Alwyn Kurts and others.

Film Buffs Forecast interview with Mark Joffe (36:02)
Film Buffs Forecast is the longest-running Australian film show, originally on Melbourne radio station 3RRR and now a podcast. Back in 1991, regular presenter Paul Harris interviewed Mark Joffe. They talk about the then-new Spotswood, and over Joffe’s previous career, which included the TV miniseries The Great Bookie Robbery and Joffe’s earlier feature Grievous Bodily Harm, which went to VHS after a very short cinema run in Sydney and Melbourne. Joffe also talks about his working relationships with key crew members, particularly Ellory Ryan. This item is presented audio-only over a still.

Oral History interview with Richard Brennan (33:31)
Producer Richard Brennan this time, again interviewed by Paul Harris, in 2006, extracts presented over stills from the film. He talks about his memories of Spotswood, and in particular working with Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins read the script while doing a miniseries in Mexico. Before that, Hopkins had made a certain film called The Silence of the Lambs, which came with stories of its brilliance but of its studio’s wariness due to its subject matter. When Spotswood finally came to market, the film had finally come out and Hopkins had won his Oscar, which helped with sales for Spotswood. He confirms that the time setting is intentionally vague: the currency is dollars rather than pounds (so after 14 February 1966). The West Gate Bridge in the final scene is still an anachronism, though, as it was completed in 1978.

Image Gallery (7:53)
A self-navigating menu of colour stills.

Trailer (2:09)
The original Australian trailer, under the Spotswood title.

Soundtrack CD (32:58)
Included in this limited edition is this soundtrack CD, which includes thirteen of Ricky Fataar’s cues for the film. It doesn’t include any of the songs on the soundtrack, for example a not very good version of “House of the Rising Sun” by Billy Baxter and the Hollowmen, which plays under the opening credits, and Donovan’s “Catch the Wind”, which is under the end credits.

Not one of the great classics of Australian cinema, then or now, Spotswood is a small film with plentiful charm. If it has rather flown under the radar, this Blu-ray release by Umbrella should give it more attention.