Love Mussel

A Perspective

By Owen Hughes 02/02/2017

Love Mussel is a wide-ranging parody whose targets include its own medium— television — and its star, Kevin Smith. He appears as himself, a celebrity actor, hired to front an investigative, ‘feel-good' documentary about a shellfish with Viagra-like properties. Ironies abound, starting with the title, in relation to Smith's perceived swarthy reputation. As director Michael Hurst— in a cameo as a TV executive— quips, "You'll get your shirt off, won't ya?" From their roles in Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess, both Smith and Hurst were regarded by fans as 'hunks'. And no, Smith doesn't.

Kevin Smith in Love Mussel. 

The only other 'real-life' characters are Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and newsreader John Campbell. Shipley is the unwitting object of Smith's unbridled lust. He is 'undone' by the sight of her on TV while he samples geoduck, the musky mollusk. An unlikely coupling slyly fostered through the medium: television is both the source and butt of the comedy.

Commissioned for a third series of one-hour Sunday dramas for TV3, initiated by NZ On Air and the NZ Film Commission, Love Mussel first aired on 18 July 2001. it was originally written for an earlier series. Writer Stephen Sinclair and producer Sue Rogers proposed it as Sam Neill's dramatic directorial debut. Neill was to play himself as the hapless documentary investigator. Whether his renowned modesty held him back is not known, but the project lapsed.

Vicky Haughton and Geoff Snell as the unlucky Noeline and Bob.

Sinclair's association with Peter Jackson — he co-wrote two of Jackson's more outrageous comedies (Braindead and Meet the Feebles) — suggests Forgotten Silver (1995) as a possible influence. Love Mussel does not pursue the mockumentary as far — it does not set out to be taken as fact — although Smith's persona complicates a conventional suspension of disbelief.

The satire runs in well worn tracks: Kiwi rustics, Māori sovereignty, masculine inadequacy, dominating women, town and country, and liberal recourse to penis jokes. Old jokes are often good jokes, and The Listener cited Love Mussel as one of the best comedy-dramas of 2001.

Jackie van Beek as fanatical protester Fiona Mathieson.

As the story gets blacker, Smith is subjected to a form of aversion therapy applied by a doctor played by Jennifer Ward-Lealand. Smith's prospects for love are little better than when the two last paired, in 1993 movie Desperate Remedies. Love Mussel's subversion of drama — and documentary's claims to present 'reality' — reflect an achievement in Smith's performance.

In its political and social themes, Love Mussel exposes masculine insecurity. From his producer onwards, Smith is beset by women setting his agenda. In spite of his piratical and raffish good looks, his hunk is at the mercy of others. Like an actor really. But Smith projects a charming vulnerability which avoids occupying either side of this comedy's gender divide. He turns the parody back on itself, and makes the love mussel his own.

- Producer Owen Hughes is head of Frame Up Films, the production company behind Love Mussel.

Back to top

Remembering Kevin Smith

By Michael Hurst 02/02/2017

Michael Hurst was the director of Love Mussel.

Kevin was a funny, warm and intelligent man, whose presence on a set or in a rehearsal room was always a welcome one. But he was also extremely focused and had his eyes on the prize.

He and I spent a day in a Los Angeles bar once. I was editing an episode of Hercules at Universal, and he was sleeping under a table at his friend's house, and spending his days going from one audition to another with a car full of clothes, so he could change for each one. He was missing his wife and kids, but he still had two more weeks of pilot season. Kevin was clear that to get what he wanted he had to do the hard yards.

Kevin Smith in a scene from Love Mussel.  

I directed him in several theatre productions. Cabaret was one. Kevin could really sing — a beautiful tenor. He was brilliant in the show and totally committed to it. Then he played Othello in a production we did at the Watershed Theatre. He agonised over it. He was a visceral kind of man, in that he felt things fully and quickly. If things weren't going well, or if he thought he wasn't "getting" it, he would literally start to punch things —  the floor, a wall, a table, whatever. He once said to me that he needed the "immediacy of shock".

On Hercules and Xena, it was always a riot when Kevin was around, because (and I think I can speak for many people here) he made you want to be naughty. He had a streak of madness that seemed to call to everyone's inner lunatic. My memories of working with him throughout this time are of laughter and insanely hard work.

Directing Kevin was great. He would do anything. He was so polite and he would really want to get it properly. He would go hard, and try anything if it would make the scene. If you watch the end titles of Love Mussel, you'll see him standing in a room under a microphone making little crying noises — short little girlie gasps of pain — and then cracking up.

This is because it was about two in the morning: we were all exhausted and I'd asked him, for our sound mix, to make the sounds his character would make (he was playing himself) having electrotherapy to his testicles. Kevin dutifully squealed at erratic intervals with total conviction for about three minutes, until it was all just too funny. You probably had to have been there.

Love Mussel: from left to right, actors Kevin Smith, Geoff Snell and Vicky Haughton.

That was the last time I worked with Kevin — Love Mussel. I think he is brilliant in it. Kevin had no fear of undermining his own image at all, so he was really funny being a kind of well-intentioned celebrity dickhead. Comedy came effortlessly to him, and if you can do comedy, then you can do tragedy. We had talked about other Shakespeares — he really wanted to play Macbeth— and how fantastic it was that we were able to do what we do.

He was really happy.

- Michael Hurst directed Kevin Smith in Love Mussel and Jubilee, and acted alongside him in Desperate Remedies and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

Back to top