The new Aussie family comedy that deserves a spot on your must-watch list.

Is it just me, or is finding a family movie you can all sit down and enjoy together harder than it should be in these days of on-demand entertainment and countless streaming platforms?

Maybe I’m showing my age, but sometimes I pine for the simple pleasures of visiting a video store, choosing a family comedy (looking at you, Caddyshack), and knowing everyone will get a laugh out of it. 

Okay, so I’m definitely showing my age, but the family movie struggle is real. Enter The Nut Farm — a seriously funny Aussie comedy that’s as charming as it is hilarious.

The film begins in San Francisco, where the endearing yet work-shy tech bro Brendan Brandon, played by Arj Barker, receives news that he’s inherited a macadamia nut farm in Cobweb, Australia. The news comes just as his latest cryptocurrency venture, Digi Dough, fails and Brendan decides to head to the farm in northern NSW and sell it to kick-start his next venture.

Watch: the official trailer for The Nut Farm here. Post continues after video.

Brendan’s Uncle Mitch, whom he's only met once before, has been missing long enough to be presumed dead and he’s left the farm to Brendan. With the proviso that to sell the property, he first needs to bring in a 20-tonne harvest of macadamia nuts to prove his worth.

For soft-handed Brendan, whose "only upper body strength comes from scrolling", the challenge is well and truly out of his comfort zone but thankfully the locals are up for helping him on his way.

There’s his nut-farming neighbour Dee (Gyton Grantley), famous for Dee’s Nuts, who takes their discussions of "nut sacks" seriously, and the "still attractive for her age" dairy farmer Kim (Madeleine West), whose son is determined to matchmake her with Brendan. Their "multi-generational" date had everyone in my family giggling — especially the toilet antics.

But all is not as it seems in Cobweb.

While on the surface, it’s a bucolic farming region complete with well-meaning locals and small-town vibes where people hold multiple roles — Esme is the local taxi driver and publican, and Sergeant Blake (Steph Tisdell) is the police officer slash postal service — underground, something sinister is happening.  

Steph Tisdell and Arj Barker in The Nut Farm. Image: The Nut Farm. 

The dreaded Zoron Clegg (Jonno Roberts) is leading a ragtag band of New Zealanders who have tunneled to Australia to run an illegal fracking operation, seeking gas to keep powering their pristine country. 

The New Zealand-flavoured jokes had me giggling throughout — from the exasperated cries of "Peter Jackson" and "crowded house" anytime something went wrong, to the talk of the "hostile country" they were in. Their disdain for Australia and the play on our long-running neighbourly competition make for comedy gold.

Clueless Brendan is the ultimate fish out of water. He’s playing at being a farmer without any real clue and drives the tractor around like he’s a cowboy in a slow-motion car chase, ripping up irrigation pipes as he goes.

Arj Barker in The Nut Farm. Image: The Nut Farm. 

While Brendan has no idea how to farm macadamias, he’s certainly right to be suspicious of the sinister Zoron, a power-hungry, dairy-drinking, wild-eyed baddie who’ll stop at nothing to get to the next stash of gas.

Cue more disappearances of local nut farmers as they fall into the collapsed land created by the secret frackers and are held captive by Zoron and his team, while Brendan, Kim and local lawyer Harry (who’s pining for his boyfriend, missing Uncle Mitch) work together to try and get to the bottom of what’s gone wrong in Cobweb.

This is a serious crowd-pleaser of a film. There are the cheeky nut-related puns, physical comedy and toilet humour that kids love, clever "over-their-head" lines that get the grown-ups giggling and of course, a romantic storyline between the gorgeous, no-nonsense Kim (the only single woman in a 50km radius) and hapless, helpless Brendan.

But beyond the obvious entertainment factor, this is also a film with great values and ideas at its heart. It explores the meaning of hard work and the kind of satisfaction that comes from putting your heart and soul into something that you care about, while also sharing a message of environmental preservation and how we all have a responsibility to care for the delicate balance of our country’s land.

And it brings home the idea of family — the ones you’re related to by blood and the family you create with the loved ones around you — and how important those relationships are in finding true happiness and fulfillment in life.

For Brendan, the very real hands-on work and heartfelt connections he finds in Cobweb are literally a world away from his digital, moneyed existence in the United States. Because let’s face it, sitting around watching your dollars grow on a screen is never going to be as satisfying as bringing in a harvest of nuts with your bare hands.

This is the kind of film that deserves a big-screen viewing experience, so do yourself a favour and take the whole family to the cinema on a day out to see The Nut Farm. 

It’s a nutty, cheeky and true-blue Aussie film you’ll all be chuckling about for years to come.

Watch The Nut Farm landing in cinemas March 14. 

Feature Image: Bonsai Films/YouTube.