If only all movies could be as joyous and genuine and complete as THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON.

Zac, a young man with Down Syndrome and no family, is an inmate of a geriatric nursing home. He yearns to break free and follow his passion to be a wrestler, inspired by a well worn VHS featuring professional mat act, Salt Water Redneck.

An octogenarian inmate, played by the irrepressible Bruce Dern, helps him escape, and Zac finds himself free, but adrift in a hostile environment. As life would have it, he finds an unlikely cohort in Tyler, a man on the lam, after a crustacean heist and a petulant petrol soaked sulk that has razed a building and raised the ire of the owners who are in hot pursuit, bent on murderous revenge.

In hot pursuit of Zak is institution carer, Eleanor, whose endeavour to save Zak has an endearing effect on Tyler.

Using the Huck Finn template, THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON is a river journey to redemption as Zak and Tyler and Eleeanor set sail for salvation on a makeshift raft through an unfamiliar and extraordinary landscape.

Filmed in and around Savannah, Georgia, The Peanut Butter Falcon is a joyous and uplifting folk story, an adventure tale that celebrates the friendship of three unexpectedly kindred spirits.

Shia LaBeouf is heartrendingly good as the troubled and troublesome Tyler, harbouring a grief and a guilt over his deceased brother. Like Huck Finn, he has trouble fitting into society, his moral compass confused by scrambled emotional fields

The brilliant Zack Gottsagen as Zak, is narratively akin to the slave, Jim, in Huck Finn, he is imposingly large but mild mannered. Due to his Down Syndrome, he suffers prejudice and bigotry from ignorant people, and from a state health bureaucracy that has made him a slave to the system.

Dakota Johnson is dazzling as the conscientious care worker come to retrieve Zak and in doing so, becomes Tyler’s unexpected rescuer, rescuing herself into the bargain.

Thomas Haden Church totally embodies the past use by date wrastler, Salt Water Redneck and John Hawkes and Yelawolf inject the right amount of righteous malevolence as Tyler’s trackers.

Befitting a tale with a wrestling motif, THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON is written and directed by tag team scribes and helmers, Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz making an impressive feature film debut, that shows, as Mark Twain said, a sound heart is a surer guide than an ill-trained conscience, a movie where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat”.

Long after a number of over hyped movies you’ll see this year have merged into memory and been forgotten in the fog, THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON will have a vivid and vibrant recall.

Masterful performances, deftly rendered and deeply satisfying, set against a vivid and vibrant backdrop, THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON is a must see.

THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON is screening at Palace Chauvel, Paddington and Randwick Ritz.