A Great Reception

When Toni Collette was in town recently prepping for the Academy Awards, she had her two “mums” help her choose a dress to wear to the Oscars--her real mother, who flew in from Australia, and her “screen mum,” Jeanie Drynan, who played her defeated, much put-upon mother in the comedy-drama “Muriel’s Wedding.”

“Rachel [Griffiths] comes to visit too,” says Drynan, who now lives in West Hollywood. “She was recently here at the Chateau Marmont when she was working on [“Blow”] with Johnny Depp.”

Such is the daisy chain of relationships spawned by “Muriel’s Wedding,” an unlikely modern fairy tale from Australia that charmed both critics and audiences when it was released in the U.S. in 1995 and has since reached cult status.

The film served as a springboard for a crop of fresh-faced talent from Down Under, including Collette and Griffiths, both of whom have since received Academy Award nominations (Collette for last year’s supernatural thriller “The Sixth Sense” and Griffiths for her role in the 1998 drama “Hilary and Jackie”); Drynan, whose new film “Soft Fruit” opens Friday; Sophie Lee, who co-starred in Jane Campion’s “Holy Smoke”; and perhaps most auspiciously, writer-director P.J. Hogan, who seamlessly transferred his cheeky independent sensibilities to his American directorial debut, the 1997 Julia Roberts blockbuster “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

It’s been five years since the real-life fairy tales for the film’s stars, director and producer began and, despite accolades for other projects, they all look fondly back on the humble little film about the residents of the fictional town of Porpoise Spit.

“To be honest, when we made ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ I thought it would only be of interest to Australians,” Hogan admitted during a phone interview from London, where he’s shooting a comedy-mystery called “Unconditional Love,” with Kathy Bates and Rupert Everett. (Hogan’s wife, Jocelyn Moorhouse, produced “Muriel’s Wedding” and co-wrote “Unconditional Love” with Hogan. She also directed the American films “How to Make an American Quilt” and “A Thousand Acres.”)

“It really did resonate with people,” agrees Lee, who played Tania, the heavy in “Muriel’s Wedding.” “I think it’s that universal story line of a girl who has big dreams and is thwarted at every turn but never gives up.”

If there was an odd film heroine of the 1990s, it was Muriel (Collette), a frumpy social misfit from a horribly dysfunctional family who spends her days listening to old ABBA tunes, lies almost compulsively, shoplifts and later steals a large amount of cash. And Muriel’s very unmodern goal to get married--to anyone, at almost any cost--to validate her existence and worth, might have repelled U.S. audiences . . . but it didn’t.

“I think if the audience loves a character it’s usually because they can see themselves in the character. And a lot of Muriel’s likability has to do with Toni Collette,” Hogan says. “She’s radiant. It’s just a quality Toni has. You could see it on screen in ‘The Sixth Sense.’ She’s not [playing] the world’s best mother, but you love her anyway.”

Striking a Nerve With Audiences

The film also struck a nerve with gay audiences, particularly gay men, even though there are no overtly gay themes in the plot.

Griffiths, who was in town recently to promote her new romantic-comedy “Me Myself I,” which also opens Friday, says that after years of having gay men approach her and tell her that they love Rhonda (the character she played in “Muriel’s Wedding”), or even that the film changed their lives, she finally put a complete stranger on the spot and said: “OK, what’s with the ‘Muriel’s Wedding’/gay man thing?”

“And this guy, who was like in his early 30s, gave me this whole deconstruction of the film as a metaphor for the gay man’s journey away from the small [town] where he’s judged for not fitting in and for being some sort of freak, like Muriel, to the big metropolis, where suddenly there’s a scene that he’s part of. And he totally reinvents himself and accumulates a sort of surrogate family of friends, like Rhonda, who accept him. And they all party, party, party and have a great life and then, in the movie, Rhonda gets this terrible disease, which he explained, in gay mythology or culture, is like your best gay friend getting AIDS.

“And like Rhonda, he says that every gay man’s worst fear is that they’ll have to go back to their small hometown to be looked after by their mother in a town that hates them. So ultimately, it’s this tale about how your friends become your family.

“And after he told me all this I was like, ‘Wow, this is all in ‘Muriel’s Wedding’?”

Another integral part of the film that helped fuel the film’s success (it grossed more than $57 million worldwide) was its old ABBA disco soundtrack, with the hits “Dancing Queen,” “Waterloo” and “Fernando.” But, as Hogan explains, he got permission from the Swedish super-group to use its music only days before production.

“When I first asked [the band’s songwriting duo] Benny [Andersson] and Bjorn [Ulveaus], they said, ‘No, under no circumstances’ could we use their music. And there was just no other band I could think of. Nothing seemed right, so I stalked them by fax and mail and telephone and I drove them crazy. I threatened to not make the movie . . . like they cared. Finally, I told the producer to book me a flight to Sweden and I faxed Benny and Bjorn a copy of my airline ticket to show them I was serious. I got this terse response: ‘Can have rights. Do not come to Sweden.’ But they were very clever--they asked for points [on the film’s gross].

“Now here in London on the West End there’s this hit stage musical called ‘Momma Mia,’ which features all ABBA music. And the poster they use is almost exactly the same as the poster for ‘Muriel’s Wedding.’ So ABBA lives on!”

The past few years have seen an enormous amount of talent emerge from Australia, including Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, in addition to the “Muriel’s” actors. The “Muriel’s Wedding” cast members agree that Australia’s film industry is reaching new peaks and is now influencing world cinema.

“You look at Peter Weir’s older films--’Picnic at Hanging Rock’ [1975] and ‘Gallipoli’ [1981]--and there were some other period films, and it was like we were looking back, but now we’re brave, we’re strong, we’re proud of being Australian and we’re looking forward and we don’t have to sort of apologize in any way or feel inferior [to England or the U.S.],” Drynan says.

Lee agrees: “I think that there is a real enthusiasm and optimism in the Australian character. We’re ready to embrace hard work and be part of an ensemble. We don’t have the star system that you have here. We’re still self-effacing and self-deprecating.”

And not a small amount of that roguishness is finding its way into American movies.

“ ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ ended up being so much more than the script promised,” explains Griffiths, who had a supporting role as one of the Southern belle bridesmaids. “It was kind of a well-written but pretty predictable romantic comedy. But P.J. really allowed it to grow and evolve while we were shooting. He slipped in all these amazing scenes that were not in the script and suddenly it became this incredible subversive film about friendship in the late ‘90s between the single woman and the gay guy.”

In addition to “Hilary and Jackie” and “Me Myself I,” Griffiths has starred in a slew of smaller films--”Among Giants,” “My Son the Fanatic,” “Children of the Revolution”--and several others that have not yet been released in the U.S. She also wrote and directed the award-winning short film “Tulip.”

Collette can next be seen on-screen in the big-budget remake of “Shaft” in the summer. She makes her Broadway debut next week in the stage musical “The Wild Party.”

Lee’s next movie is called “Bootmen,” which she describes as “a ‘West Side Story’-type working-class fairy tale”; Fox Searchlight will release it later this year.

Drynan says she and Frances Fisher may do a two-woman play here in Los Angeles that is now being written and is to be directed by Joan Tewkesbury (who who wrote “Nashville” for Robert Altman).

“None of us knew that this film, ‘Muriel’s Wedding,’ would take us on this journey,” Drynan muses. “It’s an impossible dream, and I loved every minute of it. We all owe a lot to P.J.”