‘Brian and Charles’ Review: Quirky British Mockumentary About an Unsuccessful Inventor and His Homemade Robot Is Sweetly Optimistic
Tomris Laffly “I was very low,” we hear lonesome inventor (and cabbage enthusiast) Charles’ voiceover say at the start of Jim Archer’s “Brian and Charles,” a textured, melancholic and eccentrically funny mockumentary set in a remote corner of North Wales. With the camera luring the audience into his charmingly cluttered country-home workshop straight out of a storybook, Charles thoughtfully continues to reflect on some topsy-turvy circumstances he’s battled with in his past and how inventing original tools and gadgets was the calling that helped him reclaim his life.If only Charles was actually making something marketable or even remotely useful.