Synopsis

After a deal in New York goes bad, American con artist Teddy flees to Australia, where a chance encounter with Angie ends in an involuntary marriage and a trip to her isolated hometown. Woop Woop is a surreal outback community ruled by her domineering father, Daddy-O, and devoted to old Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. Teddy soon discovers that leaving may be harder than arriving.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is loosely based on Douglas Kennedy's novel "The Dead Heart," though it reshapes the source material into a much more surreal and musical black comedy.

• "Woop Woop" is Australian slang for a remote, isolated place, roughly comparable to "the boondocks" or "out in the sticks."

• The film was presented as a special screening at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. The Cannes version ran longer than the commercial release, which was recut by distributor Goldwyn Entertainment.

• Filming took place in Australia, including Alice Springs and other parts of the Northern Territory and South Australia, with additional work in Portland, Oregon. The shoot ran from October 28 to December 23, 1996.

• Rodgers and Hammerstein songs are central to the fictional community's culture. The soundtrack also uses contemporary recordings by artists including Cake, Reel Big Fish, Chumbawamba, Poe, Boy George, and Eels.

• Rod Taylor created Daddy-O's recurring "Fahfangoolah!" expression himself.

• The film includes archive footage of Julie Andrews from "The Sound of Music," reflecting Woop Woop's obsession with classic Hollywood musicals.

• A post-credits sequence jumps 15 years forward and adds a final twist to the story.

• Its original reception was largely negative and its theatrical performance was modest, but the film later developed a cult following for its extravagant style, abrasive humor, and unusual mixture of outback satire and musical fantasy.