PROJECTING STRENGTH
Unashamedly feelgood flick tells the true story of a community’s bid to enlist a Hollywood great and save their picturehouse
ON July 15 1993, approximately five minutes before opening credits rolled on the glitzy European premiere of Jurassic Park in London’s Leicester Square attended by Diana, Princess of Wales, excited residents of Carmarthen in south-west Wales became the first paying audience in Britain to tremble at the dinoblockbuster.
Director Steven Spielberg had lent his personal copy of the film to Liz Evans, figurehead of a campaign to save The Lyric cinema from demolition, so she could host a “people’s premiere” in the resplendent Art Deco picture palace and keep bulldozers from the front door.
Media from around the world covered the event and Evans was subsequently awarded an MBE.
A rousing true-life story of community spirit and old-fashioned gumption provides the loose inspiration for director Sara Sugarman’s unabashedly feelgood drama, which arrives on the big screen as independent cinemas around the UK and Ireland proudly keep projectors lit with reduced capacities and social distancing in the face of Covid.
Written by Piers Ashworth, Save The Cinema orchestrates a crowdpleasing battle between passionate residents and a corrupt mayor for the soul of The Lyric.
Shortly after Evans (Samantha Morton) hosts a free screening of John Ford’s 1941 film How Green Was My Valley to woo locals back to the cinema, a teenager sums up his feelings about the black and white masterpiece: “A bit cheesy.”
The same pithy critique applies to Sugarman’s film – she serves up generous slabs of the stuff – but a heartfelt central performance from Morton, colourful supporting turns and bountiful good will glisten in every sentimental frame.
In 1993, hairdresser Liz (Morton), who runs Scissors ‘n’ Combs with sassy assistant Dolly (Susan Wokoma), learns that mayor Tom Jenkins (Adeel Akhtar) has secured a council meeting majority vote to replace The Lyric with a shopping centre constructed by his property developer pal (Colm Meaney).
Supported by her husband David (Owain Yeoman) and three sons, Mark (Harry Luke), Huw (Joe Hurst) and Wynne (Flynn Edwards), Liz takes up temporary residence inside the cinema, knowing a wrecking ball cannot swing at the listed building while she is in there.
An increasingly tense stand-off forces residents to choose sides and Liz welcomes the mayor’s executive assistant (Erin Richards), a town postman (Tom Felton) and her old drama teacher (Jonathan Pryce) to her tubthumping cause.
Save The Cinema abides sweetly by convention and Akhtar gamely embraces his role as the sneering pantomime villain guilty of boohiss cronyism.
Sugarman’s familiar concoction won’t shake the foundations of modern cinema like Jurassic Park but her film goes down as smoothly as one of the potent T-Rextasy cocktails that Dolly serves at the Carmarthen premiere and brings tears to eyes with its fuzzy final reel resolution.
Showing in cinemas and on Sky Cinema from Friday