Rialto Cinemas from November 13

Show of Hands is set in New Plymouth, with most of the action in a car yard where an endurance competition is being held. The competition requires entrants to place a hand on a new Land Rover Discovery and keep it there with the winner being the one who keeps his or her hand on it the longest. The world record for such a competition is over five days.

Initially the contest attracts around 100 people but it soon comes down to the hardy seven – an elderly guy, a car thief, a cool guy, a cool girl, an insomniac, a bankrupt businessman and a traffic warden.

It is the perfect set up to see how a disparate group of people interrelate under pressure as their various motivations come to the surface or are kept hidden – greed, poverty, anger, revenge, desperation and love.

The main focus of the film is on Tom, the failed businessman, and parking warden Jess, one of whom we guess is going to take the prize but there are several of the others who are about to overtake them.

Tom, played by Stephen Lovatt (Neighbors), is a fastidious, focused guy who needs to rescue himself financially. His ambition, self confidence, his multi tasking and his aggression are both attractive and disturbing. Lovatt creates a character with a steely exterior, which only occasionally shows the heart inside.

Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures, Two and a Half Men) plays Jess, a solo mother and a park warden, who is trying to win the car for her disabled daughter. At first she seems to be a bit too soft to have a chance of winning but she soon becomes motivated by competitiveness as she reacts to the macho Tom.

Lynskey creates an extraordinarily fragile person who seems lost, unable to engage with the world about her, relying on relying on something to change her life.

There is a nice underlying theme of luck and chance happenings with the various characters having their own encounters with fortune and misfortune.

As with his previous works it is his command of dialogue that makes the film engrossing. He created a collection or real, slightly flawed characters we can relate to.

The cast turn out some memorable performances with Melanie Lynskey and Stephen Lovatt giving their characters a freshness and intelligence that is thoroughly engaging.

There is a clever commentary on the event provided by a radio announcer (Owen Bullock) who is a cross between a Greek chorus and some all knowing deity.

Anthony McCarten who directs as well as being the writer has based the screenplay on his forthcoming book of the same name and is based on an actual car competition in Lower Hutt.

The film was to have been shot there but Venture Taranaki Film intervened and provided an array of incentives and infrastructure support from Venture Taranaki and the New Plymouth District Council to film in New Plymouth.

Even though there is local money in the production there is not much of a sense of the city, “the Memphis of the South Pacific,” as the radio announcer calls it, but there are some brilliant images of Mt Taranaki.

The film was conceived under the low budget Signature Film scheme financed by the New Zealand Film Commission, TVNZ and NZ on Air.