Mental illness just isn't funny. It's like Dane Cook that way. So why does Hollywood keep putting both of them in comedies?

The Cook matter is best left considered for another day, but the former question arises with today's bow of King of California, starring Michael Douglas as a recently sprung mental patient convinced there's 17th- century Spanish gold hidden under a suburban Costco. It's a film that, in less canny or caring hands, could have been disastrous, offensive, even irresponsible. But as scripted and directed by Mike Cahill, King of California reveals itself to be a moving, bemusing gem embellished by standout work from Douglas and the habitually marvellous Evan Rachel Wood.

Douglas plays Charlie, a jazz musician and delinquent dad to Miranda (Wood) who re-enters her life (after some time spent at a managed-care facility) just as she, at the wise old age of 16, has quit school, gotten a job at a fast-food franchise and managed to achieve both financial and seemingly emotional independence. (Her mom fled the scene years earlier, driven away by Charlie, who may be crazy but is -- worse -- an incurable, intolerable dreamer.) If Miranda is ambivalent about her father's return, she's exasperated by his ambitions of burrowing under a box store to find buried loot -- at least until she too is drawn into his outlandish scheme. Throughout, Wood's performance, playing off Douglas' manic caginess, deftly shifts gears from indulgence to anger to acceptance; it's another exquisitely attuned turn from the 20-year-old actress. Even when she becomes a willing participant in the jack-hammer-wielding, late-night treasure hunt, she's never less than believable.

The same is true of the bearded, wild-eyed Douglas who, armed with the kind of showy scene-chewing role that can easily propel an actor over-the-top, manages to keep both feet planted on the ground. Well, one foot, anyway.

Unlike many of his movie-star peers, Douglas has always been a performer unafraid to emblazon, rather than camouflage, character flaws -- a trait that serves him well here, working from Cahill's high-wire act of sensitivity and absurdity. This marks his most deeply felt, keenly calibrated performance since 2000's Wonder Boys.

(This film is rated PG)
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