In a movie season that is fraught with ninja turtles, jacked up super heroes, amazing fantasies and several animated films, we have, before us, a small film rooted in humans actually connecting instead of driving us farther apart. Not too many romantic drama/comedy films in our past I can truly respect, mostly for their predictability, but this story is compelling enough to capture my attention without the expectation of a formulaic script. Lou Clark (Emilia Clarke) knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in the Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis). What she doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or knowing what's coming keeps her sane. Will Traynor (Sam Claflin) knows his being hit by a motorcycle leaving him paralyzed took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that. What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of color by being hired by Will's mother Camilla (Janet McTeer) to be Will's caregiver along with Nathan (Stephen Peacocke). And neither Will or Lou knows they're going to change each other for all time.
Others to round out the cast are Charles Dance as Will's father, Samantha Spiro as Josie Clark, Lou's mother, Brendan Coyle as Bernard Clark, Lou's father, Jenna Coleman as Katrina 'Treena' Clark, Lou's sister, Alan Breck as Grandad, Henri Kirkham as Thomas Clark, Vanessa Kirby as Alicia, Ben Lloyd-Hughes as Rupert and Pablo Raybould as Frank.
This was delineated well by director Thea Sharrock (theatre direction) plus TV. This is her film directorial debut with a good deal of theatre directing to her credit. The chemistry between Claflin and Clarke was amazing and this has everything to do with the directing. Hopefully she will continue directing more films, because she appears to be quite at home with it. It was written by Jojo Moyes based on her novel. Since this is her first screenplay, I'll be much more forgiving. I say that because this was a bit clumsy in the cohesiveness of script, but since she's actually a novelist, she gave this screenplay an amazing attempt. The 'bread and butter' of this story is that of the connection of Will and Lou--this is why you want to see this film. The other actors, although pivotal, were there to fill in the gap of the growing connection between these two main characters. Even when there were places of presumed sappiness within the story, it was written in a way that forgiveness of it was appropriate. The casting of both Claflin as Will and Clarke as Lou was genius. Claflin has that seemingly pompous way about him until he starts to connect with Lou and Lou has this electricity about her and is so expressive, wearing those bright colored clothes, that the extreme opposite characteristics they hold makes it that much sweeter when they start to truly connect.
Is this a perfectly written story? No, but as this story continues to unfold before your eyes, you'll see a human, touching story that we just don't see nowadays. Hopefully this film will connect with the movie going audience amongst all the big-budget films out there so those watching this touching film can actually see what it's like to be human.
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: PG-13 110mins.
No comments:
Post a Comment