Love Serenade captured writer/director Shirley Barrett the Camera D'Or at Cannes last year for best first feature. It's the story of the Hurley sisters, Vicki-Ann (Rebecca Frith), 26, and Dimity (Miranda Otto), 21. These two young women live together in the fictional outback town of Sunray, a dusty, tiny Nowhereville that produces agricultural products and few prospects. Vicki-Ann is the town hairdresser. Dimity is a waitress at the Chinese restaurant. Vicki-Ann is perky with romantic readiness. There doesn't seem to be an eligible man within a radius of a thousand miles, but Vicki-Ann is just sure the right guy will happen by any day. Dimity, on the other hand, seems dulled out by life. She doesn't seem to believe that the right guy or anything else of note will happen by in a thousand years. And then into Sunray drives Ken Sherry (George Shevtsov), a long-haired, multi-divorced, cool-shaded hipster in a sportscar and a recent appointment as resident disk jockey for the local radio station. Ken is the closest thing to celebrity this town is ever going to see. Why, as Vicki-Ann notes, he used to work in Brisbane! Chatterbox Vicki-Ann presumes the way to Ken's heart is through his stomach. Fix him a nice meal. How about a delicious chicken casserole? Dimity takes a more direct approach. She stops by, asks if Ken is lonely and takes off all her clothes. The way to a man's heart, she presumes, begins a bit lower than his stomach.

Director Barrett (with George Shevtsov) adds Serenade to the nutty Australian comedy canon

It's true that Barrett hasn't really figured out what to do for a third act with this piece. Dimity shows more spark than Vicki-Ann ever expected she possessed. Vicki-Ann fights back. The girls get thoroughly cross with each other. And then the picture limps home. It's also true that Barrett never makes sense of her Ken-as-fish business. Dimity's favorite activity is fishing. There are lots of references to fish. Ken owns a big stuffed fish. And it seems Ken has gills. OK, yes ... and?

There's plenty of fun along the way, however. Ken is a most delectable villain, all melodious tones and supercilious sense of himself. Listening to him express his views on the world is a laugh riot. He's full of 1970s self-realization and free love blather, and Shevtsov manages to deliver it without the campy wink-wink of Mike Meyers in Austin Powers. Even better is the work John Alansu delivers a Chinese chef and onetime Vicki-Ann paramour Albert Lee. The best scenes in the film come when Albert holds forth about his views on marriage and other matters of social behavior, including his fondness for nudism.