Acting dynasties can’t save Lives The Time of Their Lives (M)
104 mins Helen Shelly (Joan Collins) is on a mission to recapture her past.
The reclusive, disgraced former Hollywood star is desperate for one more shot at the limelight. So when the director of her one hit – Morty and Me – dies in France, she’s determined to attend the funeral in the hope of calling in favours for some employment.
There’s just a few problems: she’s currently a resident of a resthome, her hip is bad and she’s frittered away all her savings. However, while heading out on a day trip to Portsmouth, Helen hatches an idea.
Spying housewife Priscilla (Pauline Collins) being harangued about her biscuit-buying choice in the superette, she sidles up to her thinking Priscilla could do with a little glamour and adventure in her life. Before Priscilla knows it, she is having a lunchtime drink at one of Portsmouth’s finest hotels and then being fleeced of her cashed-up wallet by Helen.
But getaways are not Helen’s forte these days and it isn’t long before she’s caught up with, although a coup by the rest of the day-tripping residents results in the pair finding themselves at the docks and, thanks to some further deception, onboard a ferry bound for the Gallic coast.
Writer-director Roger Goldby (Call the Midwife, Hustle) can’t really escape his TV roots in this melodramatic farce. A tale of revelations, rejections and recriminations, Time of their Lives is packed with EastEnders-esque ‘‘twists’’ and now predictable cinematic ‘‘senior moments’’.
So expect nudity, wacky baccy, satnav shenanigans, sex and roundabout hell, as this Shirley Valentine-meets-Thelma and Louise traverses its way towards a fairly inevitable conclusion.
Although it’s tonally all over the shop, there a few bright spots and the two Collins make for an effective mismatched couple, while Joely Richardson (TV’s The Tudors) has an impressive cameo.
The lasting memory, though, is what a ‘‘deeply unpleasant and selfish woman’’ (as one character describes her) Joan Collins’ faded starlet is, something that will colour the audience’s affections for the entire story. – James Croot