Juxtaposition
The dominant utilization of irony in the film is expressed through juxtaposition. Darryl Kerrigan’s son Dale provides voice-over narration which constantly undermines the visuals playing out through an ironic distance between Dale’s perspective and the audience’s perspective.
The House
The entire story revolves around the fact that Darryl Kerrigan refuses to take recompense for his house which is going to be taken by government fiat and handed over to the airport which it neighbors. The amount of recompense offered is even increased in order to speed up the process by taking it out of the court system. All of this lends to the irony truth expressed in the film’s opening monologue by his son regarding the worth of the house: “It’s worth almost as much today as when we bought it.”
Understatement
Another great element of irony in the voice-over narration by Dale is understatement. These examples of understatement are usually stimulated by the very sweet nature of Dale’s hero-worship of his father which is a different sort of juxtaposition. The father is juxtaposed as this beacon of wisdom and great knowledge—and ultimately this does prove to be truer than one expects—but for the most part Darryl is simply not a man of great insight: “He reckons power lines are a reminder of man’s ability to generate electricity. He’s always saying great things like that.”
Medium Rare
The family sits down to dinner and Darryl asks: “who ordered medium rare?” while holding the so-indicated piece of meat between a pair of tongs. The irony is that this “medium rare” offering is charred black beyond the point of recognizability as any easily identifiable type of meat or even, for that matter, as one having been meat at all.
Bonnie Doon
Darryl absolutely adores this out of the way place called Bonnie Doon to the point that he built a vacation home. As Dale is describing why his father loves it so much the visual reveal offers an ironic counterpoint showing that it is, well, to be kind it is not exactly the vacation garden spot of Australia. Nevertheless, during the meal featuring the chargrilled piece of medium rare something, talk turns the offerings of Thailand to which Darryl responds with the ultimate irony about his favorite getaway spot: “Yeah, yeah, I’m curious…now, I know it’s unfair to compare any place to Bonnie Doon, but why would I want to go there instead of here?
