听 Extras, a comedy about the working life of movie extras, is not to be confused with Extras, the sitcom about the working life of movie extras鈥 The premise of this gentle Polish comedy has a definite sense of familiarity about it, which is both good and bad. Concerned more with the personal lives of its cast than novelty celebrity cameos, Michal Kwiecinski's film separates itself from Ricky Gervais' series by way of its European cinema sensibilities. But with audiences weaned on Gervais' humour, this setting and the kind of comedy on offer here might get lost in translation.
When shooting his epic melodrama, a Chinese film director goes on location to Poland because, in his view, Poles all look miserable and will lend his film an air of tragedy. So our band of background artistes are assembled, harbouring as many racial stereotypes about the Chinese crew as they do about Poles. Stuck in the middle is assistant and translator Bozena (King Preis), having to deal with a diva director, extras planning mutiny and the unexpected arrival of her ex boyfriend intent on gate crashing the film.
"A CROWD-PLEASING ENSEMBLE PIECE"
Kwiecinski is out to prove that the natives are far from sour faced bores, weaving into his premise tales of heartbreak, new love and sibling rivalry to name a few dramas. The trouble is he's not so concerned about his Chinese characters, letting them play out like pantomime caricatures, even having one character yell that they should be making trainers, not films. Ouch. Extras is clumsy when it gets caught up in its racial tolerance plot, working much more successfully as a crowd-pleasing ensemble piece.
Extras is out in the UK on 19th October 2007.
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