''The Coca-Cola Kid'' is a 1985 Australian

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typic ...

film. It was directed by

Dušan Makavejev Dušan Makavejev ( sr-Cyrl, Душан Макавејев, ; 13 October 1932 – 25 January 2019) was a Serbian film director and screenwriter, famous for his groundbreaking films of Yugoslav cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s—many of wh ...

and stars

Eric Roberts Eric Anthony Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American actor. His career began with a leading role in '' King of the Gypsies'' (1978) for which he received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. He was nominated again at the Golden Globes ...

and

Greta Scacchi Greta Scacchi, OMRI (; born 18 February 1960) is an Italian-Australian actress. She holds dual Italian and Australian citizenship. She is best known for her roles in the films '' White Mischief'' (1987), '' Presumed Innocent'' (1990), '' The Pl ...

. The film is based on the short stories ''The Americans, Baby'', and ''The Electrical Experience'' by Frank Moorhouse, who wrote the screenplay. It was entered into the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

Becker, a hotshot American

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

executive (played by Roberts) from

The Coca-Cola Company The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892, best known as the producer of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups ...

, visits their Australian operations in Sydney and tries to figure out why a tiny corner of Australia (the fictional town of Anderson Valley) has so far resisted all of Coke's products. He literally bumps into the secretary (played by Scacchi) who is assigned to help him. Becker discovers that a local producer of

soft drink A soft drink (see § Terminology for other names) is a drink A drink or beverage is a liquid intended for human consumption. In addition to their basic function of satisfying thirst, drinks play important roles in human culture. Common t ...

s run by an old eccentric has been successfully fending off the American brand name products. The executive vows an all out marketing war with the eccentric but eventually comes to reconsider his role as a cog in Coca-Cola's giant corporate machinery. Along the way there are humorous subplots involving the office manager's violent ex-husband, Becker's attempt to find the 'Australian sound', and an odd waiter who is under the mistaken belief that Becker is a secret agent.

Cast

Production

David Stratton David James Stratton (born 10 September 1939) is an English-Australian award-winning film critic, as both a journalist and interviewer, film historian and lecturer and television personality and producer. Life and career Born in Trowbridge, ...

gave a copy of Frank Moorhouse's book ''The Americans, Baby'' to Dusan Makavejev when he attended the Sydney Film Festival in 1975 with '' Sweet Movie''. Production of the movie was difficult in part because of Makavejev's work methods, which were different from the way films were normally made in Australia.

Denny Lawrence Denny Lawrence (born 1951 in Sydney) is an Australian actor, writer, producer and director of television, theatre and film. He studied at NIDA and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Among his most notable credits are the feature ...

came on board the film as a consultant.David Stratton, ''The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry'', Pan MacMillan, 1990 p321-323 ''The Coca-Cola Kid'' was shot on location in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

–various city landmarks can be seen briefly throughout the film.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

gives ''The Coca-Cola Kid'' a rating of 47% from 17 reviews.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and said that the movie was "filled with moments of inspiration," but believed that "the last half of the film ..does not quite deliver on the promises of the first half."

Box office

''The Coca-Cola Kid'' grossed $36,365 at the box office in Australia.

Home media

MGM Home Entertainment Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment LLC ( d/b/a MGM Home Entertainment and formerly known as MGM Home Video, MGM/CBS Home Video and MGM/UA Home Video) is the home video division of the American media company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. History ...

released the Region 1 DVD in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

on 16 April 2002. Umbrella Entertainment released a region free version in May 2009. The DVD includes special features such as the theatrical trailer, and an interview with Greta Scacchi and David Roe titled ''The Real Thing''. Fun City Edition released the film on Blu-ray in the United States on 16 June 2022. In addition to the features included in the 2009 DVD, the Blu-ray contains an interview with Eric Roberts and a new audio commentary.

Accolades

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Coca-Cola Kid, The 1985 films 1985 romantic comedy films Coca-Cola in popular culture Australian romantic comedy films Films about food and drink Films directed by Dušan Makavejev Films based on works by Australian writers Films based on short fiction Films shot in Sydney Films set in Sydney Works by Frank Moorhouse 1980s English-language films