Mr Inbetween

(TV series, 3 seasons, FX, Australia, 2018-2021)

Everyday Criminal

There can be no doubt that the camera loves Scott Ryan as Ray Shoesmith – no matter what nasty business the character may be in the process of executing. His relaxed walk, his toothy grin (with bald head bowed), his way of telling people exactly what he thinks of their prevarications and pretensions – all this is quietly riveting.

What’s more, Ray is a peculiarly Australian criminal (he lives in Marrickville, New South Wales) – as the welcome blasts on the soundtrack of old hits by The Loved Ones or Mental As Anything make perfectly clear. Although sometimes enmeshed in a labyrinthine plot reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s movies, Ray’s laconic way of acting and reacting places him in a closer kinship with the crooks of British cinema and TV, from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) to Vaughn Stein’s Terminal (2018) and beyond.

But Ray’s life is not all roughing-up people in order to collect debts; he has an undeniably tender side. He looks after his brother Bruce (Nicholas Cassim), who is battling motor neurone disease. He dotes on his young daughter, Brittany (Chika Yasumura). He deals with the bad vibes emanating from his ex-wife, Jacinta (Natalie Tran), and her new, straitlaced partner.

Ray reluctantly but loyally cleans up messes (of all kinds) created by his pal, Gary (Justin Rosniak). And, on top of all this, Ray even manages to strike up a new relationship with someone almost as laconic as him, Ally (Brooke Satchwell) – who has absolutely no idea what he gets up to when he’s away from her, or why he occasionally goes full-out aggro on random, annoying strangers.

Mr Inbetween began life as the film The Magician, directed by Ryan himself. The first, “underground” version of that ultra low-budget project shot on video appeared in 2003, but it was then taken up and expanded with the help of Nash Edgerton and others – and it’s this refurbished film that achieved a commercial release throughout Australia in 2005.

The Magician used a mockumentary technique inspired, most likely, by the Belgian cult hit Man Bites Dog (1992) – with a fictive filmmaker (played by Massimiliano Andrighetto) gradually forming a queasy bond with Ray, who took his killing orders from an unseen crime boss. The original French title of Man Bites Dog, C’est arrive près de chez vous, literally translates as “it’s happened near your home”. The close-to-home element is part of the frisson of Mr Inbetween, too.

In this new TV incarnation, Ray is no longer a sordidly glamorous magician of the art of murder, but a more pressed-upon, down-to-earth “inbetween” – with, this time around, his unpleasant, vacuously trendy boss, Freddy (Damon Herriman), fully visible. Edgerton takes over directorial duties, while Ryan is the sole writer.

It is rarely helpful, in the long run, to divide screen stories into those that are either predominantly plot-driven or character-driven – since, in the best-case scenario, plot, character and theme should all advance together. In the case of Mr Inbetween, however, it’s possible to trace a tension between those parts of the story that relax into an exploration of character interaction, and those that tighten up the plot into suspenseful action.

People speak a lot these days about the possibilities of long-form serial storytelling on TV but, when a story is chopped up into roughly 25-minute segments, the final form is not necessarily so long. As we all know, the choice to either binge-watch a TV series or experience it parcelled out, piece by piece, over a period of time is crucial. Cramming the 6 x 27 minute episodes (i.e., the entire first season) of Mr Inbetween in one go, as I did, gives the illusion of a single 160 minute movie – a little baggy, choppy and meandering, but a movie nonetheless.

Seen this way, Ryan’s and Edgerton’s storytelling approach appears a little uncertain – stretching things out and exploring the terrain of character interrelationships for the first four episodes, before plunging, for the subsequent two episodes, into a very Pulp Fiction-style rollercoaster ride of errors, encounters and coincidences, leading to a bloody, provisional, end-of-season finale.

Taken in pieces and stretched over a longer viewing time, however, I believe that the effect would be considerably different, and richer. Part of the revolution in TV drama introduced by the double-wallop of Mad Men and Breaking Bad was their agonising focus on the ongoing guilt and remorse experienced by men who lead secret, double lives – either in order to hide a past identity, or cover up present-day illicit activity. The ill-fated Martin Scorsese/Mick Jagger collaboration Vinyl (2016) also activated this deliberately agonising televisual principle.

In this light, the constant, shuttling movement between criminal menace and everyday hanging-out in Mr Inbetween takes on its own eloquence, even a poignancy.

Ray may never transform into a model “good guy” exactly, or entirely, but it is intriguing to watch him trying to navigate a path toward some kind of normality.

What you’ve read so far was written in response to the 1^st season of Mr Inbetween.

Only eight months after binging the first season, I found myself keener than expected to follow the further complications of Ray’s path. The world and tone of the second season are kept exactly the same, with Edgerton and Ryan once more taking up respective directing and writing duties. Even the cheeky end-of-episode songs – from Les Crane’s unctuous “Desiderata” to Australian Crawl’s indecipherable “Beautiful People” – are still in their ironic place.

Only one truly sad number, Julia Jacklin’s “When the Family Flies In”, marks an uncharacteristic, but welcome, episode 2 ending in which Ray confesses part of his backstory as an abuse victim, and even sheds a discreet tear before cutting off the shot with a flat Aussie “Anyway …”

Through the 2^nd and into the 3^rd season, certain aspects of the dramatic premise intensify: the “kills” involve greater interpersonal intimacy; sexual relationships become more central; the thematics get more knottily ethical … and, eventually, the classic neo-gangster dilemma of “getting free” of the mob life looms in its difficulty for Ray and those closest to him.

The ultimate cap-off shows us Ray once more, against his will, being led down into a tough spot – but shooting us a wink-to-camera to let us know that his story could begin all over again, with him in total command of it.

© Adrian Martin February & October 2019