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MOVIE REVIEW: Finding your Feet

Garth Cremona (RIP)

Bittersweet comedy drama starring Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton and Celia Imrie.  Staunton plays Sandra who after being the devoted wife, mother, and grandmother for 35 years is finally going to get some time with her retiring husband.  That is until the day of his retirement party where she finds out that he’s been having an affair for five years with their close friend.  Having no where else to go, and living at the bottom of a bottle for a few days, Sandra moves in with her hippy sister Bif, who lives on a council block of flats in London.  As Sandra tries to get her life back in some shape she delves more into Bif’s world and strikes up a friendship with Spall’s character Charlie.

Never judge a book by it’s cover, as a writer I know what this means, as a reader I’m more sure what this means.  When it comes to being a film critic, which I’ve done now for nearly 5 years, I can see a poster, or a quick trailer, and know exactly where that film is going to go during the running time.  I looked at the poster, the cast, and the online trailer for Finding your Feet and made a judgement.

For the most part I was right.  You can pretty much write what is going to happen from start to finish with this film.  But something strange happens during that process, although I knew what was going to happen, I was still entertained from the start to the finish.  That is a rare thing.  Ask any movie critic, when something is predictable you almost always lose the attention a film needs.  Here I wanted to see more and more.  It’s not going to be for everyone, it’s a perfect film to take your Mother to, lets say that.  But as my Mother won’t leave the house with any of us, for fear we’ll throw her in a home, and rightly so, I’ll take my partner to see this.

Sandra is the type of unlikeable character at the start of the film that you want something horrid to happen to her, and when she finds her husband, John Sessions, and her best friend, Josie Lawrence, in a clinch you get your wish.  Her downfall is sweet, and funny, and when she moves in with her free spirit sister Bif it becomes a good British comedy.  Celia Imrie and Staunton have a great chemistry together and it doesn’t take much to believe that they are polar opposite sisters.  Because in families siblings are often at either end, my brothers are very likeable, while I’m the grumpy one of the family.

When Staunton moves in while going through their divorce it’s a culture clash but both sisters do their best to enhance each others lives.  Spall, as Charlie, is a friend of Bif’s and they go to the same dance classes every week.  This is where the different worlds meet up.  Joining the cast in the dancing is Joanna Lumley and David Hayman.  It was really nice to see Hayman play something lighter and less of a hard man.

With the ups and downs of later life being shown, and even mixing tragedy with comedy in some cases, Finding your Feet shows us that later life is not too late to start living.  Would I pay in to see this at a cinema?  The quick answer is yes.  The longer answer is yes, because when I pay into the cinema I want to escape my own life and be entertained.  There are too many films with budgets a thousand times greater than this that fail in that regard.  Finding your Feet offers little to nothing new, but it goes back to the classics of British Comedy and does it with class and style.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Director: Richard Loncraine
Writers: Meg Leonard, Nick Moorcroft
Stars: Timothy Spall, Joanna Lumley, Imelda Staunton & more…. See full cast & crew

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Author Profile

Garth Cremona (RIP)
Comic book creator and movie reviewer. You can find out more at www.dublinwriter.com
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