★★★☆☆
THIS Brit romantic dramedy takes a feel-good and amiable, if fairly familiar, look at what it means to find a new spark in life during those later years when everything seems to be set in its ways.
As her 35th wedding anniversary rolls around, middle-class and fairly snobbish Sandra (Imelda Staunton) discovers that her long-time husband Mike (John Sessions) has been having an affair with her best friend.
Seething at the betrayal, she leaves her lavish manor lifestyle and turns up on the council estate doorstep of her bohemian, far more easy-going sister Bif (Celia Imrie) whom she hasn’t seen in a decade. At first she’s utterly bereft of hope for what the future holds away from her marriage and affluent lifestyle, being rude to pretty much everyone she comes into contact with. But helped by her sister’s unending positivity in spite of her own troubles, Sandra finds that she’s able to enjoy life in a new way, including taking part in Bif’s regular dance class and falling into a potential romantic relationship with Bif’s boat-dwelling friend Charlie (Timothy Spall).
Directed by Richard Loncraine, who most notably gave us tennis rom-com Wimbledon back in the mid-noughties, this is aimed squarely at the same crowd that went in droves to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; a more mature audience that, let’s face it, aren’t regularly represented in most multiplex offerings these days.
It presents a familiar mix, one that likeably glides along rather than doing much to challenge. But it’s spun into a charming and moving enough little tale with decent and earnest things to say about aging, long-term bonds and grasping at happiness when it seemed the opportunity had long since passed by.
It works mainly down to an impressive ensemble cast who are good fun to be around. Staunton brings depth to the role of a woman scorned whose seemingly permanent scowl is transformed into a smile once she lets her emotional barriers fall. Imrie is like a ray of sunshine bursting through the film to give it much of its core power. And, despite an overly simplistic sub-plot involving his wife suffering from Alzheimer’s, Spall brings pathos to the role of Charlie. The seasoned performers make Sandra and Charlie’s blossoming opposites-attract relationship in particular feel real where it might have lapsed into triteness.
This is nothing we haven’t seen before and sometimes the heavy-handed sentimentality and silliness consumes the drama rather than enhances it; a jaunt to Italy for a dance performance is as bizarre as it is unneeded. But it knows what it wants to be and achieves it with a spring in its step and twinkle in its eye.
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