Mad Rush review: this Melbourne spin-out gets existential

Stress is a visceral thing. It floods your body with normally vital cortisol that, when pumped up too much, fast overwhelms your hormone levels. Your brain gets locked into fight-or-flight mode, with poor decision-making a high risk. So it is with twentysomething Madisha (Senuri Chandrani) in Mad Rush.

Madisha has just lost her job for reasons when her flatmate and former co-worker (Hannah Camilleri) hits her with the double whammy: she’s moving out to bed-in with her boyfriend. So now Mad Rush’s protagonist has no money coming in and double the rent due in this economy.

Almost as if sensing a disturbance in the force, this is precisely when a sophisticated cabal of phone scammers cold-call Madisha’s mobile, pretending to be from such lofty towers as the ever-hungry ATO and extremely intimidating spy web ASIO.

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Already flustered, she’s at first suspicious, then spooked into believing that hackers have assumed her identity for nefarious purposes, flagging her as a security risk and gaining access to her bank account.

Despite all the red flags billowing in the back of her spun-out brain, Madisha is conned into withdrawing all her savings (not that much). Cue a flustered sprint across the Melbourne CBD to deposit her clutch of ‘pineapples’ in a dodgy grocery joint with a ‘secure’ lock box, meeting all sorts of curious characters along the way.

Run Madisha Run

So far, so Safdies, but in truth the microbudget, 75-minute-long Mad Rush is closer in nature to Fwends than Uncut Gems.

Screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival, this intriguing debut from feature writer and director Maddelin McKenna, an Accelerator Lab alum, is drawn from the real-life experiences of a nearly hoodwinked mate.

The inciting incident – a rabble of official-sounding voices on a quiet line drowned by the city’s roar, taken in a blur of disbelief – leads to a impulsive sprint under pressure. But the film soon blurs into an increasingly existential odyssey.

As Madisha embarks on a voyage across the Victorian capital’s coffee joint-strewn, tram-trundling streets, we’ll meet Bert LaBonté’s big-hearted Uber driver, a Delphi oracle of sorts, and a preternaturally calm and calming force during the storm Madisha finds herself in.

She’ll also find comfort in the counsel of a couple cleaning a church and, in a dead-end upending of the Odyssey’s hook-up stop-overs with Circe and Calypso, makes a pass at a gay guy at a party played by none other than the director’s brother, William McKenna.

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A recognisable Melbourne

McKenna brings a keen ear for believable dialogue, with Mustangs FC cinematographer Bonita Carzino backing in her vision with a scuzzy street-level sensibility that brings a dash of Dirty Harry to the table, cannily spliced by First Light editor Geri Docherty, here working at a much swifter pace.

Costume and production designer Renee Kypriotis brings that Melbourne specificity through the film’s lewk and feel, with sound designer Josh Peters upping the ante, turning that pedestrian crossing blip-blip-blip into a doomsday clock’s tick.

Anchoring it all, Chandrani is fantastic as the all-at-sea Madisha. Driven by her bright and brassy performance, all eye rolls and ‘why me?’ exasperation, Mad Rush thrums with the unspoken belief that it’s nigh on impossible to get ahead in this world these days, unless you already come from the sort of money that can endure a casual bank clearance.

There’s a specific lol-driven wryness here that’s very much of the Gen Z moment – an exasperated fatalism underpinned with necessary-for-survival resilience beneath the slow-burning panic attack that’s equal parts ballsy resistance and resigned ennui.

A mad rush we’re in together

Mad Rush is all about the journey, both physically and emotionally, as the consequences of Madisha’s past behaviour slowly come home to roost, paradoxically bringing a strange sort of peace. Ironically, it’s at its calmest moments that this pseudo-thriller most comes alive. Far too young for such bone weariness, Madisha’s situation speaks to the mess we communally find ourselves in.

Is it really that unbelievable that, faced with rack and ruin on a global scale already, that a young woman mercilessly preyed upon in her hour of need could fall for such a menacing scam?

Haven’t we all made a frazzled mistake when we should have stood still, caught our breath and thought things through? Chandrani and McKenna will convince you to go along with this bad trip as Mad Rush turns Melbourne against Madisha, then wraps her up in her arms.

It’s a thoughtful and fun film that sure feels like home, oddly reassuring in its embrace of the tried-and-tested truism that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Mad Rush is screening at Melbourne cinemas until 20 August and regional Victorian cinemas until 23 August as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.

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