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The thing about ‘Isn’t It Romantic’ that really sucked

One part of Rebel Wilson's Netflix rom-com parody got on our nerves!
Netflix

New Netflix rom-com send-up Isn’t It Romantic is a lot of fun. Except for one relatively minor but infuriating detail: Jennifer Saunders’ Australian accent. You can hear some of it in the trailer below.

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The comedy legend, who plays the mother of Wilson’s character, Natalie, in a flashback scene, doesn’t have the worst Aussie accent we’ve ever heard on screen. The ones in that episode of The Simpsons will be hard to ever beat. But it’s certainly no Kate Winslet in The Dressmaker (pretty much the gold standard), either.

Maybe Saunders’ attempt at Strayan stands out so much because Isn’t It Romantic does star Rebel Wilson, who couldn’t sound more ocker if she tried, and Liam Hemsworth, who shifts between an Australian and an American accent with seeming ease.

This comes following several episodes of the otherwise brilliant comedy The Good Place in which our distinct accent was strangled and tortured on a regular basis (and we’re not talking about Ted Danson’s deliberately bad Aussie accent) – so much so, that it had some fans questioning whether the start of Season 3 was actually set not in Australia but The Bad Place.

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And in the past, everyone from Robert Downey Jr (Natural Born Killers) to Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) has been criticised for failing to get our distinct twang down. Even Meryl Streep, in Lindy Chamberlain biopic Evil Angels, didn’t manage to cut it.

So here’s an idea: instead of casting actors from the US, the UK or any number of other countries to play Australians, why not cast Australians, many of whom are working overseas where things like Isn’t It Romantic and The Good Place are filmed? Or, you know, hire better dialect coaches? If Australians like Margot Robbie and Eric Bana can manage to sound convincing as American figure skater Tonya Harding or con man John Meehan, why is it so hard for overseas actors to master our accent?

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