Military Wives

Seen at the Everyman, Glasgow

Cecil says: We watched Military Wives on our wedding anniversary on a wet afternoon in Glasgow, when it was a relief just to get into the warm and out of the relentless rain outside. It was a good, light-hearted film for a matinee and actually felt very relevant to our own lives in so many ways.

We are both choral singers, rather than karaoke fans, but we have seen enough self-important, know-it-all choir people over the years to recognise the character played so well by Kristin Scott-Thomas.

We also lived a few miles from the UK’s largest garrison for some years in Yorkshire and we rather fancy they filmed part of Military Wives on that garrison that we knew so well (though I guess army housing looks pretty similar wherever you are in the country). And we often drove past the isolated farmhouse, which I’m pretty sure was mainly used for film sets and appeared in this film (though there were no details of where exactly the locations were in the credits at the end).

And we have both sung at the Albert Hall, my first time also being a very emotional occasion, singing a Requiem just days after a close friend had died, so there were lots of memory triggers throughout the film for me, and I’m sure for Bea as well.

The plot is kind of fun: organising morale-boosting activities for wives of servicemen and women left behind when the spouses go on 6-monthly tours of duty; and the very different approach from the senior officer’s (posh) wife to the sergeant-major’s (more working class) partner.

I could never have survived in the armed forces for lots of reasons, but one of the toughest things I think is the stark hierarchy and the tendency for class divides to be so heightened in the forces. I would never have fitted in with the ordinary soldiers, but nor would I have been at ease in the officer’s mess, with all that posh talk going on around me.

There are some comical adjustments to the dialogue and filming to make things easier (I guess) for American – and other overseas – audiences, like the reference to ‘York Cathedral’ instead of Minster; and the hilarious signpost in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales with “London, M1” to the left and the garrison to the right (It reminds me of a final scene in some movie we saw years ago when the main character goes to a ticket counter and asks for ‘two tickets to Africa, please’…).

And although I loved the final song supposedly created from letters the wives had written to their spouses (or vice versa), with beautiful music (I think composed by Scotsman Lorne Balfe), I do not believe they would have been learning their lines still on the coach down to London, or never have rehearsed the song until they got to the changing rooms at the Albert Hall. But, hey, this is fiction and there is dramatic licence, so it didn’t really matter…

Overall, it’s a nice film, with some moving scenes related to loss and grief, but a feel-good film on the whole, and certainly good for a wet afternoon in Glasgow.

***

Bea says:  Seen at my new fave cinema, and sort of my current local – the Everyman in Glasgow, and as Cecil says, this was a bit of welcome light relief, as well as a relief to be dry and warm and sheltered from the Glasgow rain for a few hours!

Cecil suggested this one for our anniversary afternoon (in between lunch at the Willow Tea Rooms and a fish and chip supper), and I was happy to agree as I assumed it would be about the formation of the military wives choir (which it was) – but I hadn’t quite realised how much it would resonate with our life, including the Garrison scenes and the concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

 I entered choral life later than Cecil, and have sung more than once at the RAH, but the first time (the Verdi Requiem for me) is unforgettable.  Cecil and I are spending quite a bit of time apart this year due to differing work commitments, so a film that brought together so many facets of our life, on our wedding anniversary was actually very special and poignant.

However, it could have just been some good writing, and perhaps everyone seeing this film feels connected in some way to its story of marriages, loss, grief, parenting and joy – universal emotions even if one hasn’t shared the exact experience of the women.

Other than these deeper emotions, the film is actually quite lightweight and fun in a “Full Monty” kind of way with lots of singalong tracks (I suspect a stage show is likely to follow) and wisecracking.  Kristin Scott Thomas acts everyone else off the screen, and the scene where she gets into the car and sobs is stellar – I did not share the experience her character had, but I think we can all connect with feeling that wretched, particularly when used to holding it all together.  Her grounding performance lifts the whole film above the forgettable, and I am so glad that she is in it.

Definitely worth seeing – despite the emotions, this will leave you feeling good.

***.5

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Seen by Cecil at the Lido Cinema, Hawthorn, Melbourne Australia & by Bea at the Glasgow Film Theatre, Scotland

Cecil says: The older he gets, the more I find I’m enjoying Tom Hanks’ acting. Maybe that’s just me getting older, too, and relating, but I’m seeing more depth and more layers to his characters than I ever remember in earlier roles.

In Neighborhood, he’s great as Mr Rogers, the children’s TV presenter, known and loved by several generations of Americans, and with a canny knack of tuning into the real needs of each person he connects with.

Funnily enough, the kids TV programmes I thought about as I watched the film were Trumpton and Camberwick Green, the UK equivalent in the 1960s, with model people and buildings, and daily goings-on behind the doors. The windows he opened and the voice he used reminded me more of Play School, but that was for an even younger audience back then.

The main character in this film, though, Lloyd Vogel, is a rather unappealing 40 year old journalist who has a long-suffering wife, a small baby and a Dad he has massive anger towards. His task is to profile Mr Rogers for a magazine feature on ‘heroes’, and he tries to probe under the smiling, calm surface of Rogers to get to the real man underneath.

On the way he has massive fights with his Dad, treats his wife uncaringly and just came across to me as someone who needed a good dose of psychotherapy to get all those demons out in a safe place, rather than taking them out on people around him. I found him a totally unsympathetic character, so had no empathy for his situation, and certainly no tears when things went even further wrong for the man.

Rogers smoothly glances aside any probing questions from Vogel, saying only that he is only human himself, and finds an outlet for any frustrations he may have comes in thrashing down hard on the deepest bass keys of his piano. And there’s a scene very late on in the film, where we see Rogers do just that: so is that just him letting off steam after a hard day? Or is it a hint that maybe there are darker layers to the guy than we get to see in the film? We’ll never know, but it was an interesting moment, and I give the guy the benefit of the doubt…

***

Bea says: I saw Neighborhood at the Glasgow Film Theatre and went knowing very little about it other than it was Tom Hanks’ latest outing.  I thought, from the title, that it would be some kind of happy, pleasant film – and in some ways it was, but it was actually very, very emotionally intense as well. 

Not being American, I know little of Mr Rogers other than that he is/was a popular children’s entertainer from the 1960s-80s.  The insights into his motivation for this – helping children deal with deep and difficult emotions such as anxiety – was interesting. 

Our modern times are complex and difficult indeed – I sat grimacing throughout as I expected Lloyd Vogel’s investigative journalism to uncover some dreadful deed along the lines of those children’s television presenters who have more recently fallen from grace.  But this does not happen, and I was so relieved that it did not.  In a way, this was the only light relief the film had for me – Lloyd is not an overly likeable character but his difficult childhood and family life help to explain that, and his journey of self-discovery as he gets to know Mr Rogers better is heavy but at least ends well.

Tom Hanks is very good – again, perhaps I have been programmed by our modern times but I did find him slightly creepy in this role….maybe that was intentional?  I wasn’t alone, as the cinema usher told me the same thing on the way out.

I suspect the awards surrounding this film are nostalgic and to do with Americans remembering their Mr Rogers years fondly, although the story and acting are very good. 

My main or only critique was that It was surprisingly poor on the Bechtel however…I would have liked to see or hear a bit more from the female characters.

However, recommended.

***.5