the unlikely pilgrimage of harold fry…

I went along to the Cinema de Lux earlier today with Ru and my good friend Ed to see Hettie MacDonald’s film based on Rachel Joyce’s novel (which I first read 10 years ago… and re-read a couple of years ago).
Recently-retired Harold Fry (Jim Broadbent) takes a stroll to the postbox one Devon morning to post a letter to an old work colleague (Queenie, played by Linda Bassett) who’s dying of cancer. But for some reason he can’t bring himself to post the letter and then, following a chance encounter in a petrol station, he decides to walk from Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed (something like 500 miles!), where Queenie is receiving palliative care in a hospice… leaving his wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton) feeling just a little hurt and confused (understatement!) by her husband’s abandonment. Fry somehow believes that, by walking through the B-roads of Britain, he can save his friend’s life.
But the film is much more than this… it explores all sorts of other stuff (life, love, family, loss, relationships, friendships, purpose, boredom, old age…).
Like the book, I enjoyed the relatively gentle (pedestrian even!) pace of the film – which felt absolutely ‘right’ and appropriate for Harold’s pilgrimage.
The film also represents something of a fantasy… 500 miles walked in deck shoes and with virtually no equipment by a retired, somewhat overweight man unused to exercise? Some days (at times, when Harold was joined by a ‘gang’ of marching supporters), they were apparently only covering a mile day? Doing the journey utilising B-roads and without maps (and a compass for only the latter stages) seemed like a breeze (a walk in the park?)? But, hey, I’ll forgive it…
I loved the book and very much enjoyed the film version… and felt hugely relieved that it was done ‘well’ – keeping more or less to the book’s storyline and, crucially, using perfect actors for the key roles (Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton were both absolutely excellent).
PS: Sadly, this film wasn’t on the Watershed’s current programme… Cinema de Lux was fine (larger seats, more legroom… and more expensive!) but you had to put up with the VERY loud (even for me without my hearing aids!) Dolby Sound System, not to mention the 25-30 minutes of adverts and promotions at the start.
PPS: There were less than a dozen people in the audience (for the 11.05am screening!).

the merry wives of windsor…

Moira and I went along to Cinema de Lux last night to see the live-screening version of the RSC’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, directed by Fiona Laird. Although it’s absolutely brilliant that live-screening provides an opportunity to watch the RSC perform from Bristol, for me it’s not quite the same as being a member of the ‘real’ audience at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford (from my somewhat limited experience of these things, cinema audiences don’t applaud and I, for one, never feel an integral part of the live performance itself).  
Although I know the play quite well, I think this was the first time I’ve actually seen it performed for perhaps 50 years (if ever?). As you may know, it’s probably the most farcical of all Shakespeare’s comedies. Parts of the storyline seem very appropriate for today - as the play features that renown womaniser and sexual predator Sir John Falstaff (quite brilliantly played by David Troughton) endeavouring to seduce two women (again, convincingly and hilariously played by Rebecca Lacey and Beth Cordingly)… but with Shakespeare’s original setting transferred from middle-class Berkshire to metropolitan Essex and to a world of beauty salons and manicurists (the ‘Fat Woman of Brentford’ becoming the ‘Fat Woman of Brentwood’)… complete with estuary accents and wheelie bins!
It was a fun evening of exuberant, light-hearted entertainment… and I particularly liked the clever, over-the-top costume design (The Telegraph critic described it thus: “Elizabethan costume stylings, lashings of bling and dashes of ‘The Only Way Is Essex attitude’”).

the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society…

Moira and I went along to Bristol’s Cinema de Lux (no, not the Watershed… and yes, my second film in two days!)(I know) to see Mike Newell’s film "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society", based on Mary Ann Shaffer+Annie Barrows book of the same name. I read the book in 2010 (and thoroughly enjoyed it) and think it’s probably time I read it again.
It’s set in 1946 and takes the form of an exchange of letters between a writer (Juliet Ashton, played by Lily James - and very lovely she looked too) in London and a Guernsey pig farmer (Dawsey Adams, played by Michiel Huisman) – the latter being a member of the GL+PPS book club. In his letters Adams conveys some of the struggles the islanders suffered during the German occupation… and, in due course, Ashton decides to visit the book club in Guernsey to learn more of their stories.
As I suspected, I didn’t enjoy the film anything like as much as I’d enjoyed the book.
The film was too sugar-coated for my taste (and the same applied to the sections which included musical accompaniment – which was all a little too soft and ‘twinkly’!).
It all looked rather beautiful and cosy – but just a little too charming, if you know what I mean. The Guernsey Tourist Board will no doubt be delighted – even if, apparently, much of it was filmed in Devon and Cornwall (not to mention Bristol harbourside!). The film script invented lots of stuff that wasn’t in the book and I also thought Michiel Huisman seemed a strange choice for the Dawsey character (Peter Bradshaw’s review in The Guardian describes him thus: “one of the handsomest pig-farmers in the world, a stubbled exquisite”!).
But, hey, having said all that, I found it a perfectly enjoyable, feel-good film – just right for a rainy Sunday afternoon perhaps, when you’ve nothing better to do?
Photo: Film poster with Bristol’s very own ‘Balmoral’ ship in the background.
PS: I’d forgotten my previous experiences of Cinema de Lux – a) over half an hour of adverts and previews before the film(!) and b) just how ridiculously loud the sound system was (I would go as far as to describe it as ‘unbearable’!).

dunkirk…

I have, at last, seen Christopher Nolan’s film “Dunkirk”!
It’s everything that I’d anticipated – in terms of being made to feel as if ‘you were there’ in the stark, brutal, frightening reality of war. Nolan cleverly (and very effectively) does this through three separate narratives (the evacuation from the beach; the pleasure craft coming to the rescue; and the battles in the air), which play out over three different time periods (one week, one day and one hour respectively)... with everything converging at Dunkirk and with time itself being variously compressed and elongated.
It’s all brilliantly done… and really does give you a sense of being part of the action.
My one slight reservation is the ‘fictionalisation’ of it all. True, stories-within-stories probably do help to convey a sense of reality (ie. how something affects a person or a family member or a colleague), but there were certainly times during the film when I found myself wanting to see the ‘bigger picture’ and not to be caught up in a bit of made-up story! I’m a great admirer of Kenneth Branagh as an actor, but even I found his portrayal of ‘Commander Bolton’ like something out of a 1950’s war film (or even like his characterisation of Isambard Kingdom Brunel at the London Olympics opening ceremony!). But, hey, that’s probably just me…
Anyway, this is a film definitely worth seeing.
PS: I’m clearly not used to attending cinemas such as ‘Cinema De Lux’ (frankly, give me the Watershed every time!). Somewhat ridiculously (I think it’s the first time I’ve been to a cinema before noon), I attended the 11.50am showing – but COULD have attended any one of today’s FIFTEEN scheduled screenings(!). In the event, I was one of just FIVE people in the audience… in an auditorium that seated some 300!!
PPS: The adverts and trailers ran for a full THIRTY minutes (I looked at my watch)!  Not only that, but they were INCREDIBLY loud (and I mean incredibly)… it felt a bit like being in a 1970s disco where the DJ wanted to show off the volume of his machinery. Anyway, I found it utterly unbearable and, acknowledging that there just might be one or two loud explosions in the main feature film (something of an understatement!), I ended up stuffing tissue paper in both ears (yes, REALLY!) in anticipation… and I’m very glad that I did!