Extras

Hard to recommend this undemanding small-town comedy to anybody but homesick Poles. World traveller Romek (Bartosz Opania) returns to midland town Konin only to find his abandoned wife (Kinga Preis) has a new partner and is working for a Chinese film production hiring locals as extras. Michal Kwiecinski’s jauntily-scored, easily consumable, ably directed but facile film dovetails their story with that of a half-dozen or so of these clueless extras – a proud widow, a gilted photographer, a hesitant mummy’s boy, a shy, young orphaned woman – in a gentle comedy of, as yet, thwarted emotional and romantic aspirations. The director’s aspirations don’t extend beyond caricature – notably of the Chinese – but at least he eschews grand pay-offs even if he can’t resist a happy-clappy ending.