ScreenWize

This is a charming and predictable coming of age story that ambles along like a learner driver, providing some moments of delight but never able to shift into top gear. Writer/director Jeremy Brock, who based the story loosely on one of his own childhood experiences, has a wonderful cast to work with but can’t quite juggle the dark humour with the poignancy of the central Harold and Maude type relationship between older woman and teenage boy.

Rupert Grint plays Ben Marshall, the unbearably introverted and long-suffering 17-year-old son of do-good Christian mother Laura, (Laura Linney) and hen-pecked father Robert (Nicolas Farrell), the local vicar. It’s clearly the tightly wound Laura who rules the Marshall roost, demanding pious compliance to the values she works so very hard to maintain in the community, despite the sense that all is not well when the lights go out at home.

To help contribute to the salvation of a bizarre lodger, Laura suggests that Ben find a job for the summer holidays, and after seeing an advertisement in the local paper, he makes his way to the home and garden of ageing actress “Dame” Evie Walton (Julie Walters). Evie is as refreshing and hedonistic as Ben’s family is strangled and reserved, and an unlikely friendship develops between the outspoken older woman and her sensitive helping hand. Evie drags Ben through town and country, offering him her riotous advice, listening to his tentative hopes and bad poetry, and coming to rely upon him in ways that surprise both of them.

Julie Walters steals the show with a wonderful and wide ranging performance, but her character is the only one given room enough to collect the comedy hidden in this piece. Rupert Grint – straining to break his Harry Potter shackles – has clearly been told to play it simple and straight so that we can focus on Evie’s antics, and he only occasionally manages to drop the stunned mullet look. Linney, as Ben’s severe and fanatical mother, and Farrell - as his uncommunicative father - are far too sad and real for a good laugh, yet not developed sufficiently enough for strong drama. Brock, as first time director, doesn’t seem sure what he wants to do with his story and ultimately relies on a forced plot line to bring it home safely. Despite this, it’s still a warm and engaging film, worth watching to see Julie Walters in action.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon