Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 3/7/2014)

Promising agent Anne Mercier that he will be back in Paris in time for a business dinner, TV actor Lambert Wilson takes the train to the Ile de Ré, off the west coast of France. Renowned for playing a surgeon in a popular melodrama, Wilson is keen to establish his thesping credentials by mounting a production of Molière's The Misanthrope and he hopes to convince the reclusive Fabrice Luchini to make a comeback some three years after he supposedly suffered a breakdown while making a film.

Crossing the bridge linking the island to the mainland, Wilson makes light of his celebrity by leaving a message with a leading doctor after cabby Stéphan Wojtowicz tells him about his aged mother's hip injury. By contrast, Luchini argues the toss with plumber Jean-Marc Rousseau about the need to repair the septic tank in the garden of the rundown house he inherited from an uncle who disliked his 10 sons. He is surprised but pleased to see Wilson and they reminisce about the shoot in Hungary when they last saw each other six years ago.

Luchini avoids discussing his health, but shows Wilson the pictures he now paints to pass the time. Cutting to the chase, Wilson says he remembers Luchini's passion for Molière and mentions that he is planning a production of The Misanthrope in Paris. Luchini declares acting to be a vile profession, but Wilson insists that he is one of the good guys. However, he doesn't want to appear too desperate and says that brain surgeon partner Camille Japy is from the Ile de Ré and that he is in the area looking for a holiday home. Keen to change the subject, Luchini calls estate agent friend Ged Marlon and the pair are soon inspecting a property that Marlon insists would be a wise investment after major renovation.

As they look round, Luchini asks about the play and Wilson assures him that he has a producer and a theatre lined up. However, he bridles when Luchini assumes that he would take the title role of Alceste and Wilson reminds him that he once claimed that the supporting part of Philinte was more of a challenge, as scholars have always mixed up which character is the optimist and which is the cynic. Luchini is aghast that Wilson would have the audacity to offer him second billing and Wilson tries to claw things back by suggesting they could break with tradition by alternating the roles. Luchini refuses to contemplate such an arrangement, however, and it is only when Wilson is trying to find out train times that he suggests they sleep on the proposal and postpone any decision until they have had a read through the following day. Declining an offer to stay in a cluttered spare room, Wilson checks into the hotel run by Édith Le Merdy and her niece, Laurie Bordesoules. He apologises to Mercier for missing their appointment and tries to sleep, while Luchini daubs away at a canvas into the night. 

The next morning, the actors toss a coin to see who reads which role and Luchini plumps for Alceste. They select a scene about spurned friendship and Wilson suggests that Luchini is attacking the text too vigorously. As they walk by the sea, Luchini admits that he confused Alceste with Che Guevara and they pop into a beachside restaurant for lunch. As they eat, Wilson confides that Luchini saved his career by giving him the confidence to stand up to a bullying director and he lays on the flattery by complimenting his interpretation of Tartuffe. They notice Maya Sansa sitting at an adjacent table and Luchini explains that she is an Italian who lives nearby.

They rehearse through the afternoon and Wilson praises Luchini for capturing Alceste's controlled anger and Luchini admits that he is impressed with Wilson's Philinte. But, while he insists that he has fallen out of love with acting, Luchin agrees to postpone a decision until the weekend and proposes that they spend the next four days workshopping the text. As Luchini goes for a bike ride, Wilson chats to Le Merdy about his TV series and discovers that Bordesoules is a porn actress who has made decent money from a handful of films. Le Merdy asks if Wilson would give her niece some acting tips and he half-heartedly agrees.

During their first session the following day, Luchini loses his temper when Wilson's phone keeps ringing and he placates him by explaining that he is arranging to borrow a house from novelist Josiane Stoléru so that he can better concentrate on the work at hand. However, the hackles are soon raised again when Wilson complains that Luchini is delivering his lines too quickly and he responds by declaiming with plodding deliberation. Wilson despairs of getting anywhere if Luchini cannot accept criticism and Luchini retorts that he responds favourably to notes that make sense before comparing Alceste's trial for mocking Oronte's verse with the persecution that drove him into exile.

During a cigarette break, Wilson asks Luchini about the rumours surrounding his breakdown and he explains that he decided to quit after being betrayed by a producer he considered a friend. They resume their labours, but it doesn't take long for Luchini to criticise Wilson's inflection and they argue about the sanctity of alexandrine rhythms and the need for audiences to understand an ancient form of language. Luchini cites iconic actor Louis Jouvet's maxim about cheating patrons unless the text is revered and Wilson takes exception to the insinuation that he is something of a small-screen ham. He protests that actors have a duty to communicate rather than be elitist, but their dispute is interrupted by Marlon arriving to show Wilson two more holiday homes.

Luchini insists on tagging along and the pair continue to bicker as they look around Sansa's house. She is tetchy and warns Marlon that she will hire another estate agent unless he secures a quick sale. Wilson tries to charm her, but she says she detests actors because they are narcissistic and dismisses Luchini's efforts to explain that his friend is famous and deserving of a little more respect. Wilson curses her as they go to see a converted windmill, only for Luchini to accuse him of being a cheapskate when he questions the asking price when he is earning €1.2 million for each series of his trashy doctor show. This prompts Wilson to lose his temper and he mocks the Ile de Ré and its microclimate and derides its blonde Catholic family vibe before falling silent when Marlon insists it's the second most popular holiday destination in France.

In order to clear the air, Luchini suggests they go bicycling and they run lines as they roll through idyllic countryside. However, Wilson is nervous about his brakes and careers into a stretch of water when swerving to avoid an oncoming moped. Luchini compliments him on his physique as he changes into dry clothes and Wilson confides that he loves Japy and her 12 year-old daughter, but isn't keen on moving in with her. Luchini delights in his isolation and wishes the bridge had never been opened linking the island with La Rochelle. Yet he concedes he is enjoying playing host and acting opposite Wilson. But he refuses to make a commitment to the play and announces that he will be late on parade the next day, as he is having a vasectomy. Wilson is bemused why a loner would need such a drastic operation and Luchini explains that he never wants to repeat the mistake of having a thankless son.

As Luchini waits at the bus stop, Sansa offers him a lift and he accepts, in spite of his dislike of women drivers. She teases him about being raised by an abusive mother and apologises for being so snappish when they first met. He concurs with her contention that actors are awful people and is sorry to learn that she is splitting up with her husband. She curses him for not wanting children and then abandoning her for a woman with a son. Furthermore, she warns Luchini about the painful after-effects a friend suffered following his vasectomy. He asks what she plans to do next and she insists she wishes to turn the page, as life is too short to dwell on the past. But, even though she is keen to move on, Sansa concedes that has grown fond of the Ile.

Having heard distant cries of pain in the waiting-room, Luchini jumps off the operating table and flees. Meanwhile, Wilson is shown around his new lodgings by housekeeper Christine Murillo and is delighted to discover a jacuzzi in the back garden. Murillo tuts about her employer using it naked and criticises the way so many houses on the Ile have been turned into retreats that could otherwise accommodate large families. As he leaves, Wilson bumps into Wojtowicz, who asks why the renowned doctor hasn't been in touch about his mother. Wilson shrugs that he has done his best and walks away, but it is clear that the cabby believes he is belittling him.

Sansa collects Luchini from the hospital and coaxes him into singing along with the car radio. They go for a walk along a stretch of deserted beach and she regrets having found a buyer for her property. Wilson cycles up and enthuses about fresh air and exercise before pedalling away. But he cannot resist teasing Luchini about romancing the future mother of his bambini, as Luchini picks vegetables from the garden. He is in such a good mood that he agrees to interrupt their afternoon rehearsal to talk to Bordesoules about acting and they joke about her taking more exception to the early hours involved in filming pornography than the indignities she is forced to endure.  

Indeed, Luchini is in such high spirits that he allows Wilson to play Alceste. However, he quickly becomes irritated by his decision to limp as he reads his lines and Luchini rolls his eyes as Wilson explains that he has invented a backstory involving a cruel father and a childhood fall from a horse. Luchini stresses Philinte's lines about Alceste becoming a laughing stock and lambastes Wilson for missing the character's core hatred by trying to retain his own misguided sense of civility.

They set to squabbling again, but are disturbed by Bordesoules. She tells them that she is only doing porn to pay for her wedding. However, she has a train to catch to arrange a shoot in Bucharest and Luchini seizes upon her polite disinterest in what they are doing to insist that she watches them perform a scene from the play. She confuses The Misanthrope with Tartuffe and Luchini shoots her a contemptuous glance before revelling in a sequence in which Alceste decries Oronte for being a hack. As they turn for approval after a lively exchange, Wilson and Luchini are dismayed to see Bordesoules texting her boyfriend. So, Luchini decides to humiliate her by making her read one of Celimène's speeches and they are taken aback when she performs it with feeling. Indeed, as she hurries away, they feel sad that such a sweet girl has become involved in such a sordid industry and regret being unable to do anything to spare her future ignominy.

Alone that night, Wilson invites Japy for the weekend and goes out to try the jacuzzi. It is underlit and seems very inviting. But the water begins to bubble out of control and Wilson thrashes around as he struggles to switch it off. He regales Luchini and Sansa with the story the following day and she teasingly compares his plight to James Dean's Porsche crash. As she leaves the restaurant, Luchini invites her to supper and they shop for food at the conclusion of an amicable rehearsal montage. Luchini is impressed to see Wilson on the cover of a listings magazine and insists they catch his show that evening, as he never usually bothers with television.

Trying to ignore the smell of the septic tank, Sansa compliments Luchini on his home and settles down to watch Doctor Morange. Wilson explains the plot and admits to being proud of a couple of scenes. He doubts Luchini's sincerity when he congratulates him on the delivery of a particularly melodramatic line. But he is deeply hurt when Luchini takes a phone call from Marlon and assures him that he is not interrupting anything important. As Luchini returns to the sofa, Wilson makes his excuses and Sansa ticks Luchini off for being so callous. She wounds him by saying he lacks the purity of heart to play Alceste. But he refuses to apologise and Sansa leaves lamenting that she has misjudged him. 

Next morning, Wilson cycles to the market in the nearby town in order to cheer himself up and milks the murmur of curiosity and adulation. However,Wojtowicz spots Wilson and accuses him of being a fraud because his doctor friend still hasn't phoned back  But, in defending himself against a charge of not caring about the little people, Wilson ends up in a fistfight and the onlookers gasp in horror as he hurls Wojtowicz into a stall.

Wilson seeks out Luchini for some medical attention and he tries to apologise for his behaviour the previous evening. Wilson insists on reading Alceste in a scene in which he ignores Philinte's efforts to calm him down and rages against base flattery before hissing out his loathing of common humanity. Luchini is genuinely surprised by his fervour. But Wilson is in no mood to be patronised and accuses Luchini of toying with him for his own amusement. Yet, as he helps Sansa pack her books, Luchini admits that he has enjoyed acting again and has warmed to Wilson, in spite of his shortcomings. As he cycles home, he spots Wilson struggling with his bike chain and agrees to do the play. Wilson accepts on the proviso that they swap cycles and Luchini proceeds to ride into the water when trying to evade the same moped that did for Wilson.

In a sequence that references François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1961) and The 400 Blows (1959), Sansa joins them on a ride to the beach. Wilson smiles at Luchini paddling, as he calls Mercier and asks her to bring the contracts for signing. He convinces himself that he has brought Luchini back to life and looks on benevolently as he dances with Sansa after supper. As they wheel their bikes home, Wilson jokes that Luchini will need an Alitalia loyalty card and he sings to himself as he paints into the small hours.

Luchini opens the shutters next morning with a renewed sense of zeal and strides with purpose to Sansa's place. However, he discovers that she has left without saying goodbye and, when Luchini informs Wilson, he confesses to sleeping with her after returning to fetch his forgotten phone and finding her crying on the bed. Wilson insists Sansa threw herself at him and Luchini tries to laugh off the betrayal by tutting that he could hardly have fallen in love in four days. He jokes that he won't tell Japy when she arrives and reassures Wilson that they are all adults and that these things happen.

Across the island, Japy and Mercier hail a taxi and are disturbed to learn how Wojtowicz got his black eye. Stoléru has also descended and she invites some friends for a soirée. Wilson tells her about the killer jacuzzi and she asks him to pose for some photographs to mark his stay in her home. Meanwhile, Luchini has taken receipt of a 17th-century costume and takes a long, hard look at himself in the mirror as he shaves off his stubbly beard. He cycles to the party and arrives to see Wilson working the room.

Distractedly, Luchini welcomes Japy and Mercier to the Ile and discusses rehearsal and touring details with the producer. But, when he asks Luchini to recite a few lines, he scowls that he is a thespian not novelty act. He also avers that he won't do the play at all unless he plays Alceste. Wilson is furious with him for reneging on their deal. But Luchini calmly replies that Wilson demonstrated that he knows nothing of honour when he slept with Sansa. Japy is shocked and asks Wilson to explain what has been going on, but he is more intent on trying to thump Luchini and they have to be kept apart. Recovering  his composure, Luchini quotes Alceste's lines about humanity being wolves and declares that the assembled liggers and philistines deserve never to see his face again.

A fade out gives way to opening night and Japy joins Mercier in the audience. All appears to be going well, with Wilson playing Alceste to Jean-Charles Delaume's Philinte. But, as he reaches the point in the text where Luchini had criticised his inflection, Wilson pauses and realises he was right all along. He stands in embarrassment at the front of the stage and looks out at the audience, suddenly aware of his limitations. Back on the Ile de Ré, Luchini cycles to the beach. He looks out to sea and smiles to himself, as he takes pride in his hatred of humanity.

Played to perfection by Wilson and Luchini and smartly scripted and directed by Le Guay, this is a deceptively acerbic assault on slipping standards in the French acting profession and the declining importance of classic plays in an age of dumbed-down Internet access. Le Guay uses the gentrification of the Ile de Ré as a metaphor for the state of the performing arts and makes adroit use of Jean-Claude Larrieu's seascapes, Françoise Dupertuis's production design, Elisabeth Tavernier's costumes and Milou Sanner's hairstyles to emphasise the differences between Wilson's pampered tele-celeb and Luchini's self-destructive artiste.

There are dry patches and the last act is allowed to drag. But the odd moment of slapstick pricks the pomposity of the duelling `friends' and refocuses the mind before another bout of slick intertextuality. Some critics have accused Le Guay of reducing the female characters to ciphers, but the chauvinism is too rooted in the scenario for it to be anything other than dramatically relevant. Besides, both Sansa and Bordesoules have their moments, as does Le Guay, who casts a shroud of ambiguity over both Luchini's precise motivation for embarking upon what may always have been a charade and the truth about Wilson's midnight tryst with Sansa. But centre stage very much belongs to Luchini and Wilson, whose byplay is a masterclass in both scene-stealing and generosity that leaves one hoping against hope that a Hollywood producer hasn't hit upon the idea of reworking the picture around The Iceman Cometh as a vehicle for Robin Williams and Al Pacino.

An even more unlikely friendship develops in The Year and the Vineyard, Jonathan Cenzual Burley's delightfully dotty follow-up to The Soul of Flies (2011). Set in a sleepy village in the wine-growing province of Salamanca, this disarming time-travel saga manages to be a quirky science-fiction fantasy, as well as a satire on 21st-century attitudes to the role of the church and state, the growing gulf between the generations and the ongoing crisis of Spanish masculinity  Meticulously staged, mischievously played, mellifluously scored and movingly concluded, this is both cosy and audacious and confirms Cenzual Burley as a left-field talent to watch.

In April 1937, the volunteer Italian force known as the Garibaldi Brigade formed part of the International Brigades fighting to preserve the Second Spanish Republic. However, as Sicilian Andrea Calabrese makes his way from Madrid to the frontline at Guadalajara, he falls through a hole in time and lands in a vineyard in present day Salamanca. Unable to understand the stranger's complaints that he might have broken his back, owner Luis Cenzual wonders whether he is an angel and sends elderly Hortensia Lucas to fetch priest Javier Sáez.

So excited by the prospect that a miracle might have occurred in his backwater parish, Sáez runs across the fields. But Cenzual is more worried about compensation for the damage done to his vines and tells Sáez that he expects the Catholic Church to pay if Calabrese does turn out to be on his team. Fearful of being taken prisoner, however, Calabrese flees and takes sanctuary in a rocky nook by the river.

The following morning, he washes in a pool and, when Maria Escobar comes to fetch water, she informs him that he is in Miranda del Castanar, some 400km from Guadalajara. Unsurprisingly, Calabrese is confused and experiences a flashback after taking a tumble. He finds himself in Sicily and falling for Laura Drewett, who teases him that she might be a mermaid who decided to dwell on dry land. However, when he wakes, Calabrese is lying in bed in teacher Fede Sánchez's spare room. He informs Calabrese that he has some good and some bad news. The downside is that he has landed in Nationalist territory, but the upshot is that his side won the Battle of Guadalajara and that the war has been over for 75 years.

Calabrese jumps out of bed thinking that Sánchez is crazy. But he slinks back after looking out of the window and, during a walk around the village, he confirms that he has somehow slipped through time. The smell of combat has disappeared and the tears of the fallen have long been dried by the sun. But Calabrese feels uneasy at being in a time that does not belong to him and in a peace that he did not win. He stares up at a medieval citadel in bemusement and wonders what on earth to do next.

Sánchez reports to Sáez that Calabrese is a displaced Republican and not a celestial emissary. However, Sáez hugs the teacher and urges him to listen to his heart, as they could be in the middle of another Lourdes and he insists on examining Calabrese himself. The Sicilian smokes and looks unimpressed as Sáez examines his back for evidence of wing sockets and beckons to him to extend his arms to see if he has the requisite two metre wingspan mentioned in his book. He asks Calabrese for permission to check if he has sexual organs and he curtly assures the priest that he does. Sáez then shows him images of Jesus, Mary and saints Anthony, Teresa and Jerome and Sánchez hides a smile when Calabrese tells Sáez that he and St Jerome were childhood pals.

Crestfallen, Sáez announces the bad tidings to the peasants gathered beneath the window. However, Lucas suggests that he might be a saint rather than an angel and Sáez returns to ask Calabrese to turn a glass of water into wine. He swirls his finger in the liquid with some irritation and snaps at Sáez when he takes a sip and tuts with disappointment. The cleric shrugs and tells Calabrese that he had to check, as, after all, his story is more than a little unusual.

As he wanders in the hills, Calabrese remembers fragments of his idyllic life with Drewett: how she never wore shoes, but loved tomatoes and always smelt of the sun coming through the window. He adored the way she pushed her hair behind her ear and was grateful to her for keeping him sane, as the Spanish Civil War raged and he felt powerless to do anything about it. Sánchez finds Calabrese as he sits on a stone wall looking at Drewett's photograph. He hopes she died peacefully in her sleep, as she had wanted to fight alongside him and he tells Sánchez that he would do anything to see her again.

Rain pours down on Miranda del Castanar and the surrounding countryside. Sáez sits in his room and asks the propped up holy pictures why they sent him an Italian atheist rather than a saint. He prays for advice on how to convert him and admonishes the voices in his head for all speaking at once. Shushing the others, he asks Jesus for his input and he concludes that seducing Calabrese with opera is a stroke of genius.

Early the next morning, Calabrese goes for a walk in the woods to take some photographs. He spots Sánchez, who is surprised to see him and insists he is searching for mushrooms. However, the newcomer realises that he is spying on Escobar as she fills her buckets at the tap and admonishes the teacher for suppressing his feelings for two years and reminds him that good wine goes sour if it is left in the barrel too long. Much to Sánchez's consternation, Calabrese calls Escobar and he has no option but to engage her in conversation. She asks how the visitor is doing and he says he is suffering because of love. Escobar wonders what it must feel like to be that devoted to someone and Calabrese hugs himself as Sánchez offers to carry her water home.

Wandering on, he is dismayed to see Sáez kneeling at the side of the road. He has hidden a radio tuned to the opera channel in the undergrowth and asks the Sicilian if he can hear singing. Calabrese tells the priest he is a crackpot when he claims to be mimicking Christ asking St Peter from the Cross why he denied him. Sáez urges Calabrese to let the Almighty guide his footsteps, but he growls that he follows no one and insists there is no such thing as God in a war zone. Realising he is getting nowhere, Sáez switches off the radio and walks silently alongside Calabrese, who has forbidden him to speak.

A montage shows Calabrese being accepted by the locals and sampling a fiery brew, as Sánchez dances with Escobar. The camera picks out grazing donkeys and mooching cats, as it roves across the rooftops and over the valley. But, as Calabrese leafs through a book on the Spanish Civil War, he sees a photograph of Drewett firing a rifle from behind a rock during the Battle of Guadalajara. As it is dated 17 March 1937 and he fell on the third, he pleads with Sánchez to help him travel back so his beloved doesn't have to fight alone.

As he harks back to the day of his departure, Calabrese tells Sánchez that Drewett wore a white lace dress and accepted his ring as they swore their own wedding vows and forgot the troubles of the world for a single day of pure happiness. He drove off in a truck the next morning and she saluted him with a red handkerchief. But he now knows that she left Italy a few days later and joined the International Brigades and he simply has to find her.

Sánchez arranges for Calabrese to meet veteran Felix Cenzual, who remembers a lot of Italians dying bravely at Guadalajara. He calls it a pointless battle and admits not knowing what happened to Drewett. But he suggests that Calabrese should look for another lover if his trip to the battlefield proves fruitless. The old man recalls the thrill he felt when the war ended and regrets that the peace didn't eradicate hunger, poverty and suffering. As he leaves, he urges Calabrese to take his chance and wonders whether they might bump into each other in 1937.

Back at the vineyard, Luis Cenzual has found an unexploded bomb and demands that Sáez pays for the damage, as it fell from the heavens that are his jurisdiction. When he regrets that he won't be able to help, the farmer tuts that his predecessor would have sorted something out, but Sáez curses under his breath that Fr Damian is now residing in Cuba with his Romanian mistress.

As they work out what to do with the missile, Calabrese reasons that it must have fallen through the same hole in the skein of time as he did. Therefore, he asks Sánchez if it is possible that they could find the tear to enable him to clamber through it and resume his old life. Cenzual suggests that they throw stones upwards and note the place where any fail to fall back to earth. Unable to think of anything better, Calabrese ropes Sánchez and Sáez into tossing stones (and an amusing cutaway shows them peppering soldier Norberto Gutierrez, as he tries to lay low in a 1930s foxhole).

After several unsuccessful lobs, Sáez hits the spot and Calabrese quickly follows suit to confirm the precise place in the sky. The trio return with a ladder and Sánchez and Sáez hold it upright so that Calabrese can pop his head in and check if they have found the right place. He climbs down and Sánchez asks if he can have a peek at the past. Calabrese hopes he  doesn't get shot, as Sáez asks him why he would rather risk his life in 1937 than stay in their peaceful present.

Climbing down in ashen-faced silence, Sánchez claims to have witnessed Hell and wanders away in horror. He tells Calabrese he is insane for wanting to go back there, but the Sicilian insists he has to, as he might just tilt the balance. Besides, he has to try and find Drewett, as she made such a deep impression on him that he had to sing his love for her. However, he agrees to stay for three more days in order to help Sánchez tell Escobar how he feels and the action cuts to the trio creeping up to her house at dusk. 

Once again, Sánchez loses his nerve. But Sáez calls out her name, as a wedding would give him something to do. They push Sánchez forward and Escobar asks what he is doing in her olive grove. Suddenly, Calabrese begins to play the guitar and Sánchez sings a love song with such awkward sincerity that Sáez is worried Escobar will burst out laughing. Amused and charmed, she applauds and asks Sánchez why he never said anything before. She tells the priest and the Italian to go home and they look back to see her greeting Sánchez and taking him by the hand.

The day of departure arrives and the trio return with the ladder to the middle of the vineyard. Calabrese accepts a scarf to keep him warm and thanks Sáez and Sánchez for their assistance. As they hug, Sáez pleads with him not to shoot any priests and gives him the lighter he uses for candles in church to light a cigarette. They look up as he vanishes and realise they are alone again. Lowering the ladder, Sánchez suggests they go for a glass of wine.

Landing with a bump in the bitter cold of March 1937, Calabrese moves forward hesitantly with his revolver drawn. A dark pall hangs over the horizon and he discovers that the fighting has already moved on. He walks through villages decimated by mortars and finds the hill where he saw Drewett in the photograph. There is no sign of life, but Calabrese swears to keep walking until he finds her.

Acting as his own cinematographer and editor, Jonathan Cenzual Burley is something of a one-man band. But his imagery and pacing are as assured as his writing and direction and, as a consequence, this space-time oddity beguiles, amuses and intrigues. The underlying notion that the soil and sky never forget is deeply poignant, as is the emphasis on the undying love involved in religious belief, patriotism, idealism and romantic passion. Yet, while it provides plenty to think about, especially as the numbers of those who survived the Spanish Civil War are now dwindling fast, this is primarily a comic study of the impact that time and place have on personality.

It would appear as though all three male principals are outsiders. Yet, even though the taciturn Sánchez and the excitable Sáez have not quite being accepted by the locals, they are expected to have all the answers where Calabrese is concerned. The villagers are much of a muchness to his eyes and ears and, yet, these are the very people he was prepared to lay down his life for three-quarters of a century before. Ultimately, however, the peace they offer him fails to exert the same pull as the love he left behind and Cenzual Burley makes subtle use of the light in the flashbacks to ensure that Calabrese's past seem shinier and more vibrant than the present into which he had stumbled.  

The performances are splendid, although Sáez's affectations grate slightly and more might have been made of Escobar's eminent good sense and affectionate amusement at Sánchez's bashful adoration. Nevertheless, the banter is witty and brisk, while Tim Walters's folksy guitar score is as beautiful as Flash Johnson's sensitive sound design and Cenzual Burley's use of saturated colour, which belies the paucity of the budget. Some are going to find this too quaint, other too quirky. But those seeking an offbeat paean to the things that make life worthwhile will be enriched and charmed.

The week's third unlikely relationship is forged between a garrulous East London girl and a taciturn teen from the Wye Valley in Here and Now, which marks the feature bow of Lisle Turner, who made his name with such shorts as You Can Go Now (2006), Oxygen (2008) and Canvas (2010). When Turner's father died, a friend suggested meditation as a means of finding solace. As a consequence, Turner became a student of Buddhism and this saga set against the changing seasons reflects upon the impermanence that is a fundamental tenet of the faith. Moreover, the male lead is named Sidney Arthur Young in honour of the young Siddartha, although he is also supposed to resemble Devadatta, while his new friend Grace is purportedly a variation on his sister, Yasodhara.

Further reinforcing the spiritual connection is the fact that the principles come to discover themselves at eight key locations that mirror the eightfold noble path of the Buddha's discourses. However, little of this will be readily apparent to the casual viewer and one suspects more will be struck by the hollow ring of the dialogue, the awkwardness of the performances and the corny narrative contrivances than the picture's achingly sincere subtext. Yet, this remains a visually arresting debut that attempts to say something different about the state of the nation and the potential for sensitivity and understanding of Britain's much-maligned youth.

Having lingered over a snog with boyfriend Dharmesh Patel, teenager Lauren Johns slides into the backseat of a waiting car and sulks all the way from the capital to Herefordshire. A thudding tune about living in a nightmare plays on the soundtrack, as the camera focuses on Johns's bleached tresses, tarty make-up and trendy clothes. She doesn't say a word to African father William Nadylam or Irish mother Susan Lynch, but complains bitterly the moment they arrive about being dragged to a backwater that doesn't have a decent phone signal.

Hoping that some time away together will help the family reconnect, Nadylam has borrowed a borderlands house from a friend and is dismayed when Lynch announces that she has work to do, as someone has to pay the bills. He sidles out to chat to Johns, as she sits on a stone wall and they meet the strapping Andy Rush and his mother, Claire Coache, as they make their way home from the shops. Nadylam hints that Rush might like to show Johns around and she tuts in frustration at being forced into spending time with such an obvious geek.

Deciding to make the best of things, Johns dolls herself to the nines and is mortified when Nadylam produces a bike so she can go cycling with Rush through the Black Mountain countryside. Pedalling furiously to keep up with him, Johns calls Rush `freak boy' and becomes irritated when he keeps slowing down to let her to catch up, only to speed away again. Subjecting him to an incessant barrage of banal questions, Johns trudges behind him as they walk through the woods. She asks about his favourite music and TV shows, but Rush remains silent until she inquires whether there are any bad lads around like her boyfriend and whether his girl gave him the scarab he wears around his neck.

As their daughter strives to break all-known talking records, Nadylam and Lynch argue over his struggle to make it as a musician and her frustration at having to be both the breadwinner and the disciplinarian. But the focus quickly returns to Rush and Johns, as they explore some ruins and she complains that `history is like, dead'. She concedes that the castle might have looked nice when it was new and jokes that she would jump off the ramparts if she had to live in such a boring place. However, she gets nervous when Rush climbs a crumbling wall and is framed from below against the sun behind a cloud.

Blurry impressionist close-ups of wild flowers give way to a shot of milk splashing on to muesli, as Coache teases Rush about making a new friend before he cycles off to collect Johns, who is reading a magazine as she lounges in the garden in her shades. She tells Rush that she knew he wouldn't be able to stay away from her and comes to his defence when he is taunted by bully Jack Spreckley and his mates Alex Evans and Anthony Murphy. Spitting bile as she stands toe to toe, Johns smirks as Spreckley is ordered to wash the car by his loutish father, Steve Carpenter. But she ticks Rush off for allowing them to intimidate him.

After cycling for a while, they reach a cornfield and Rush guides Johns to a rowing skiff that was deposited by flood waters. She makes a lame joke about all being in the same boat and wishes her parents would sort themselves out. He smiles as she asks if this passes for a wild time around here and then rescues her when she gets lost while trying to find a phone signal. As he leads her back to the road, they see a fox hanging from a gate and he tells her it is a reminder (but doesn't elucidate).

As Johns arrives home, she overhears Lynch berating Nadylam for being detached from reality and informs him that she doesn't want another child as she is struggling to cope with the troublesome one she already has. Hurt that Patel hasn't called, Johns ignores her father when he comes to check she is okay and lies on her bed watching phonecam footage of herself trying to goad her boyfriend into saying that he loves her.

The following morning, Nadylam goes for a walk on his own. As he sits in a graveyard overlooking the Wye, Coache invites him to a party on Saturday night. Meanwhile, Johns and Rush have ventured into the depths of the woods to explore underground. Tossing Johns a torch, Rush leads her through a narrow network of passages into a large cavern and she jokes that her parents would think they were up to all sorts in such a secluded hideaway. He plays `Amazing Grace' on the harmonica and she compliments him by saying his gesture wasn't as `greasy' as it should have been. She teases him about still being a virgin and is put out when he backs away from a clumsily attempted kiss.

As they emerge into the daylight, Johns warns Rush that he has blown his chances and that she will be sticking to normal people from now on. Back home, Lynch bursts into tears after hearing that everyone at the office is managing without her and she feels under-appreciated in two places at once. Rush also returns to find his mother in tears and she explains that she still feels the pain of losing his father. Clearly bothered by the circumstances of his demise, Rush exercises vigorously as night falls. But he has no intention of sleeping for long, as he wakes Johns by tossing some pebbles against her window and coaxes her to come down, even though it's still dark.

He takes her apple picking and laughs when she rustles a branch with a forked stick and some fruit falls on her head. They lean against a tree together during their lunch break and listen soulfully to the violin music being played by a farmer. Johns sticks a pip on Rush's cheek and declares it looks like a tear. As they work into the afternoon, the camera picks out fields full of hay bales to signify the end of summer. But things are only just starting for Rush and Johns, who is allowed to go to the pictures that night after Lynch and Nadylam are impressed with her for earning the price of her ticket.

Money issues blight the following day's excursion, however, as Lynch refuses to pay the admission price to a stately home and Nadylam is in such a foul mood when they return to the cottage that he nearly crashes into the cycling Rush. Unperturbed, he takes Johns to the river and strips off to his underwear to dive into the muddy water. She follows suit and watches him float on his back as she sits on the bank in a towel he has thoughtfully brought. Johns clams he is like a boy scout because he is always prepared and, as they throw bread to some swans, she recalls the happy times she used to have when her parents took her swimming.

Arriving home, Johns finds Lynch cooking because Nadylam is brooding. Strumming his guitar, he refuses to come to the table and Johns wonders why they keep bickering. Never one to back away from a confrontation, she pours water on Spreckley and his mates next morning, as they take cover on a rusting bridge across the river. Rush points out the remains of a nearby aqueduct and jokes that it must have looked good when it was new. However, Johns isn't listening, as she is checking her phone for messages. It slips from her grasp and falls into the river and only Rush's quick intervention prevents her from similarly plunging down.

Rush arrives home to find Coache sorting through the last of her husband's clothes. She asks about Johns and tells him to make the most of her while she is here. By contrast, Nadylam takes his daughter's muddy knees to mean she has been up to no good and both Johns and Lynch lie alone that night wishing they could get things back the way they were. In a last bid to ensure they do something as a family, therefore, Johns begs her parents to come to the party and they wander in to find the courtyard of Coache's converted barn heaving with locals and their offspring. They are taken with the easy sense of community and Lynch looks on fondly as Nadylam and Johns mingle with confidence. Coache tells Lynch she is lucky to have such a fine man and breaks down as she reveals that hers died three years ago to the day.

As dusk falls, everyone gathers around a roaring fire and Nadylam is encouraged to follow Jay Nicholson in singing a song. Lynch smiles reassuringly, as his lyrics reflect upon the state of their marriage and they canoodle in the background as Johns and Coache exchange compliments by firelight. Rush takes Johns to see a tree decorated with lanterns and they climb into its branches to cuddle under a blanket. She puts her head on his shoulder and tells him that she likes the fact he only speaks when he has something to say. However, their moment is shattered when her parents call her home.

Lynch and Nadylam are playfully chirpy at breakfast the following morning and Johns leaves them to it, as Rush has promised to take her somewhere special on their last day together. As she waits, however, he is ambushed by Spreckley and his pals, who steal his bag and subject him to a kicking when he tries to retrieve it. Rush struggles to his feet and roars in Spreckley's face when he brands him `Killer' and taunts him for not having a father to defend him. But Rush needs to be alone and cycles into the Black Mountains without collecting Johns.

She seems to know where he has gone, however, and finds his bike at the side of the road. As the weather closes in and the music on the soundtrack becomes more drivingly dramatic, Rush makes his way to a high ledge and gazes out across the landscape. But Johns comes up behind him and calmly touches his arm. They sit down and he explains how his father fell to his death from this precise spot and how he had waited with his body for several hours before they were found. It had been a terrible accident, but rumours started at school that Rush had killed his dad. He confides that he could stand the accusations, but has never quite come to terms with how little was left after his father was cremated and his ashes were scattered on the wind. Johns looks into his eyes and they kiss, as the sun comes out and they can see clearly again. 

The magic hour light gives way to shots of browning leaves, as Johns and Rush embrace for the last time. He tells her to be happy and she looks back through the rear window as they drive away. As a song of mournful optimism plays in the background, she inspects the scarab now around her neck and the viewer is left to wonder whether this is goodbye or merely farewell. 
 
Despite numbering Andrew Eaton among its producers, this has clearly been produced on a smallish budget and Turner isn't always able to paper over the cracks. Will Humphris's photography and Neil Hillman's sound design are clear plus points, as is the glorious setting. But Jonny Pilcher's electronica score is irksomely intrusive and some of the support playing from the grown-ups errs on the stiff side. Johns also struggles with some tin-eared slang in the early stages, but she settles into the role and sparks pleasingly, if not always persuasively with the strapping Rush, who always looks much more imposing than his persecutors.

The major problems, however, are the formulaic nature of the storyline and the slenderness of the characterisation. Turner also fails to give the audience a proper sense of the environment, as the tough estate where Spreckley lives seems detached from the homely community that rallies round Coache in her hour of need. Similarly, there is no sense of how far apart the ruins, woods, caves, bridges, mansions, picturehouses and hills actually are. Moreover, the relationship between Coache and Rush is very thinly sketched and it is never made clear just how old he and Johns are supposed to be. Yet, for all its shortcomings, this lulls viewers into rooting for the young lovers and may even prompt a few to read up on Devadatta and Yasodhara.

These names would almost certainly have been familiar to George Harrison by the time he moved into Friar Park in Henley in 1970. Six years earlier, however, he would still have been coming to terms with the phenomenon that had made him, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr the most famous quartet on earth. Before setting off to conquer America, The Beatles had signed up to do their first feature film and they urged manager Brian Epstein to ensure that it stuck to a `day in the life' format that had none of the cornball cutesiness or romantic contrivance that had made the movies starring Elvis Presley, Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard so conventional. So, when `Til Death Us Do Part scribe Johnny Speight proved unavailable, Epstein persuaded Liverpudlian writer Alun Owen to accompany the Fab Four on trips to London and Dublin and he gleaned enough from this three-day liaison to produce the screenplay for A Hard Day's Night.

Never one to suffer fools gladly, Lennon disliked Owen for being too much of a professional Scouser and insisted that Epstein found a director who would bring a bit of edge to proceedings. He was delighted, therefore, when Epstein persuaded American Richard Lester to supervise the project, as the Fabs adored The Goons and Lester had directed Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan in the Oscar-nominated short, The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959).

While in the United States, documentarist siblings David and Albert Maysles had been given backstage access to the band in Washington and New York. The result was What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA, which had been shown on Granada television as Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! a few days before the cameras started rolling at Paddington Station on 2 March 1964. Albert Maysles always insisted that Lester had stolen the idea for a vérité approach from his actuality. But Owen's script had been completed in late 1963 and Lester was sufficiently seasoned in Free Cinema and the nouvelle vague to plump off his own bat for the docudramatic shooting style that would not only change the face of the pop musical, but also how rock music was to be filmed for the next five decades. .

Having refused to appear in Robert Hartford-Davis's teenage pregnancy drams, The Yellow Teddy Bears (1963), because they would not have been able to write their own songs, the Fabs found a sympathetic ear in the boardroom at United Artists, where producer Walter Shenson was keen to exploit the group's sure-to-be short-lived popularity by commissioning and securing the exclusive rights to a new `soundtrack' album. Ultimately, this would be the only LP solely composed by Lennon and McCartney and it remained at No.1 in the UK for 23 weeks. But what helped it sell were the clips culled from the film and used to promote the singles `A Hard Day's Night' and `Can't Buy Me Love'.

The latter sequence depicting the foursome frolicking around in a park was particularly memorable and drew on Lester's love of silent slapstick. It led to him becoming the godfather of MTV, as he sought ways of breaking with the lip sync and strum approach to filming pop that had existed since Bill Haley and His Comets were showcased in Richard Brooks's Blackboard Jungle (1955). Even during the TV finale, Lester managed to use angle, lighting and rapid editing to fashion an anti-performance style, which was later followed with mixed results by directors on Ready, Steady, Go and Top of the Pops.

Lester's attempt to jettison traditional narrative altogether was less successful, however, as Ringo's flight from the TV studio after being teased by his bandmates and Paul's Irish grandfather (a very clean Wilfrid Brambell) and the madcap Sennettesque search for him definitely constitute a storyline. Moreover, it induces the only slackening in the breakneck pace, even though it did give Ringo a moment in the spotlight, similar to George's dismissal of the `grotty' trend-spotting media and John's mistaken identity encounter with dance girl Anna Quayle. Unfortunately, Paul's backstage showdown with a Shakespearean luvvie was cut, although arguments rage about whether it remains in the archives because it slowed down the action or because Macca (in spite of dating actress Jane Asher) was a wee bit wooden.

The scene-stealing Brambell was similarly given a few Steptoe-like set-pieces to cash in on his small-screen celebrity. But there was nothing sitcom about the rest of the film's humour. Whether scripted or ad-libbed, it managed to showcase the irreverent charm that had made the Mop Tops the media's darlings, while also proving that, despite the fame, they were still just four likely lads from Liverpool. Based on their now legendary performance at Kennedy Airport (which took place just weeks before shooting began), the press conference sequence is particularly revealing of their rapid-fire repartee. John later dismissed comparisons with the Marx Brothers. But there are definite similarities between their caustic combinations of sarcasm, puns, irony, insult and nonsensical deadpan. Moreover, there are times when the reporters almost become a collective Margaret Dumont.

But Lester was keen to demonstrate both his and the group's catholic comedy influences. There's mild Felliniesque surrealism in the way the Fabs suddenly appear outside the train to taunt snooty commuter Richard Vernon and in John's unexplained disappearance from an emptying bath-tub. By contrast, a hint of Chaplin-like pathos (or at least Norman Wisdom-style sentimentality) informs Ringo's riverside meanderings, while knockabout dominates the anarchic `playtime' sequence, which Lester makes all the more hilarious by his use of helicopter shots, unexpected angles and variegated film speeds.

With global takings of $11 million on a £200,000 outlay, A Hard Day's Night changed the visual presentation of pop forever. Moreover, it gave The Beatles a taste for cinema. Following the less distinguished colour romp, Help! (1965), Lennon guested in Lester's pacifist satire, How I Won the War, while McCartney teamed with producer George Martin to score the Boulting brothers comedy of marital manners, The Family Way (both 1966). Following the teleplay Magical Mystery Tour (1967) and the animated Yellow Submarine (1968), Harrison also took the score composing route with Joe Massot's Wonderwall (1968), while Starr, who was always considered the combo's most natural actor, got to play alongside Peter Sellers in Joseph McGrath's Terry Southern adaptation, The Magic Christian (1969).

Sadly, the cracks were already beginning to widen by this stage and Michael Lindsay-Hogg chronicled the penultimate hurrah in the long-suppressed documentary, Let It Be (1970). Only Paul, Ringo and their director have survived to mark the 50th anniversary of The Beatles's first film, which has been restored for a short theatrical run before being released on  DVD and Blu-Ray. But Lennon's barbed exchanges with manager Norman Rossington and TV director Victor Spinetti; Harrison's bid to teach factotum John Junkin to shave and his mockery of the shirts he is given to assess by the supercilious Kenneth Haigh; McCartney's spicy badinage with Brambell; and Starr's melancholic conversation with the truanting David Janson have lost none of their wit or charm and will live much longer than anything seen in Love Me Tender (1956), The Tommy Steele Story (1957) or Expresso Bongo (1960).

Another singer makes his acting debut in Mark Lamprell's Goddess, as Boyzone crooner Ronan Keating is paired with stage sensation Laura Michelle Kelly in an amiable, but arch adaptation of Joanna Weinberg's one-woman show, Sink Songs. Anyone familiar with musicals will know that disbelief has to be suspended at regular intervals to ensure that everyone in a given scene can hear the ethereal backing track that has prompted a seemingly ordinary person to step outside the quotidian and express their feelings in three verses and a chorus. However, in turning an aspiring kitchen songstress into an Internet superstar, Lamprell and Weinberg ask the audience to accept once too often that Kelly's trans-global followers are all imagining exactly the same arrangement and choreography of songs that sound pretty much the same and lack the witty insight into the singer's psyche that has been a prerequisite of the stage and screen musical since Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart devised the concept of the integrated songbook in the early 1930s. .

It also doesn't help that Keating proves a distraction from the core plot or that Kelly (who bears a passing resemblance to Nigella Lawson) is far too glamorous and poised to convince as the put-upon mother of toddling twin terrors in a Tasmanian backwater. Lamprell and Weinberg are clearly keen to meld Mamma Mia! with the kind of career girl screwball that Doris Day made her speciality after she decided to stop being a wholesome screen chanteuse in the mid-1950s. And it's very much to their credit that they nearly pull it off. But the story fails to gel around the `big love' at its soft centre, while the over-reliance on a surfeit of secondary ciphers who exist solely to push the narrative on a couple of scenes leaves this feelgood fantasy feeling more than a little forced.

Opening promisingly with a cowpat pastiche of a memorable mountain-top moment in Robert Wise's The Sound of Music (1965), the action switches to the ramshackle house in rural Tasmania where Laura Michelle Kelly is struggling to cope with three year-old tearaways Levi and Phoenix Morrison, whose genius for reducing any situation to chaos is made manifest with an uber-tantrum in the local supermarket in full view of sniffy moms Tamsin Carroll, Corinne Grant, Pia Miranda and Natalie Tran. Shelf-stacker Cameron Lyon feels sorry for Kelly, but she is sure that all will be well when husband Ronan Keating returns from researching the secret life of whales in Antarctica.

They have cut a deal that Kelly will care for the boys until they go to school when Keating will take over and allow her to resume her musical career. She thumps a piano in the barn and sings about the frustrations of domesticity, but her spirits soar when Keating appears from nowhere and whisks her off to the bedroom. By the time he emerges from the shower, however, Kelly has crashed out and the mischievous Morrisons (one of whom permanently wears a pair of fairy wings) keep them from canoodling the following morning. Indeed, Kelly blows her chances of any affection by bawling at Keating for making a mess in the kitchen and they hardly have time to make up before a helicopter comes to collect him to address some hazily revealed cetalogical emergency.

Frustrated at not being able to raise her spouse on e-mail, Kelly decides to install a webcam and runs a wire across the kitchen from a potted plant above her sink to the alcove that houses her computer. Realising she can't perform her music on stage, she turns the kitchen into her show space and starts churning out `sink songs', which she hopes will make Keating realise what he's missing during his prolonged absences. She also tries to befriend her snooty neighbours during a picnic in the park, but they are far from welcoming and her next song (in which Kelly sports a gingham shirt and a cowboy hat) involves regimented ranks of pram-pushing nannies counterpointing her sardonic lyrics.

Seemingly on a whim, Kelly hires the devoted Lyon to set up a website so she can send her songs online. Soon, users across the world are logging on to catch up with her antics, including some wearing wimples, hijabs and crowns. Even the local moms become hooked on her posts. But there's still no word from Keating. Kelly pours out her heart into another number (which sees her dancing on the kitchen table along with a flamenco ensemble that materialises out of the ether) and it catches the eye of Hugo Johnstone-Burt, a besuited lackey who works as an assistant to Sydney PR executive, Magda Szubanski.

She flies to Tasmania to take tea with Kelly and smiles bravely as the Morrisons ransack her handbag. But she succeeds in convincing Kelly that she has the winsome everywoman appeal to help her sell the new Goddess range of laptops. So, Kelly hires no-nonsense nanny Celia Ireland to keep an eye on the twins and boards a plane to the mainland. She has a pang of guilt before take-off, as she imagines the TV news carrying an item about a selfish mother who put her own ambitions before the welfare of her children. But Kelly is bursting with excitement when arrives in the big city and marvels at the view of the harbour from her hotel window. She is also delighted to find that Johnstone-Burt has set up a laptop link to her website so she can watch her sons.

What she doesn't know, however, is that Keating has come home without warning and been bashed on the head with a frying pan by Ireland. When they renew contact, she pleads with him to do his bit while she seizes her opportunity and she is amused to see him doing the dishes naked apart from an apron. The sight of his tattooed torso equally delights Kelly's followers and Keating becomes a minor celebrity himself when he breaks wind with his bared bottom facing the camera. However, he has no idea he is being recorded and struggles on with the housework as Kelly revels in being pampered during a flashy number that is broadcast to her fans through a second channel on her web page.

The transition to stardom proves trickier than Kelly anticipated, however, and she fluffs her lines in various national costumes (as well as an alien outfit), as she films the promos that will help sell the Goddess worldwide. Keen to keep her spirits up, Szubanski takes Kelly for dinner in a posh restaurant and urges her not to get homesick as this is the kind of chance she cannot afford to let slip through her fingers. Walking back to her hotel feeling buoyant, Kelly is charmed by street musician Dustin Clare, who serenades her on the Circular Quay and she returns to her room feeling confident and in control.

Kelly watches her family on the webcam as she dresses next morning. But her bubble bursts when she feels uncomfortable about posing naked in a recreation of the Botticelli Venus and Szubanski lectures her about the time and money being invested in her and how she needs to show a little gratitude and responsibility in return. Suitably chastened, Kelly completes the shoot and some of her faithful look a little disappointed that she has sold out. Back home, Keating is feeling put out because Lyon has left Kelly a perfumed gift on the doorstep and they argue on the phone about Kelly thinking only of herself. Needing to clear her head, she goes for a walk and bumps into Clare, who kisses her after escorting her back to her hotel early the next morning.

Szubanski has lined up a deal in New York and Kelly is tempted to go after her mentor does a hot mamma number on the boardroom table with a troupe of hunky acolytes. However, the agency has replaced Ireland with perky blonde Lucy Durack, who is great with the boys and draws gasps from the web watchers when she gives Keating a sensual shoulder rub. He is unaware that his every action is being relayed around the planet and Kelly is just as horrified to discover the truth. She tries to call Keating to warn him, but the disapproving Grant pips her to the post and, much to Szubanski's fury, Kelly conspires with Johnstone-Burt to lose the contract so she can return home and save her marriage.

Keating is every bit as cross with Kelly and strides up the gangplank to his waiting ship when she rushes to the docks to plead her case. They duet mournfully across the ocean and wonder if their love has gone. But Keating is troubled by the cry of a whale pining for its mate and flies back to Tasmania booming the sound from the helicopter speakers as he lands beside the shopping mall and whisks Kelly into his arms in front of the onlooking townsfolk. As the picture ends, Keating and his crewmates watch Kelly performing on her website and a recording session for her new show breaks out into the streets for a song-and-dance finale that closes with a freeze-framed top shot. 

It may seem a touch capricious to wait until the final third of a musical to give a star of Ronan Keating's magnitude his first song. But the focus here is very much on Laura Michelle Kelly, who won an Olivier Award back in 2005 for her work in Mary Poppins in the West End. She radiates energy and charisma, but these are hardly the qualities of a stressed housewife and, as a consequence, her inability to cope with fame after her songs go viral rings frustratingly hollow. Although the character does have a tendency to behave irrationally, the fault for this lies with Lamprell, who should have reined in Kelly's luminous performance. However, this is his first feature behind the camera since he debuted with My Mother Frank and After the Rain in 2000 and he struggles to match the finesse that Phyllida Lloyd brought to Mamma Mia! (2008).

Lamprell seems on a better wavelength with Magda Szubanski, with whom he collaborated as a writer on George Miller's Babe: Pig in the City (1998). She steals scenes for fun as the power-dressing comfort eater who has reinvented herself as a publicity maven after her husband deserted her for being infertile. But the excess of minor characters clutters the action, which lurches between problems to be overcome without much sense of plausibility. Damian Wyvill's photography and Annie Beauchamp's production design are admirable, but there are no real showstoppers in Bryony Marks and Joanna Weinberg's score (which was partly produced by Phil Ramone), while Lamprell's camera placement and Mark Warner's editing do little to raise Kelley Abbey's choreography above the level of a TV variety show. Notwithstanding the cavils, this makes for reasonably enjoyable viewing. But it consistently lacks the wow factor to make you tap a toe, let alone jump out of your seat.