SAVE THE CINEMA
★★★
Cert 12
On NOW and Sky Cinema now
Like Pride and Dream Horse, this is another Welsh-set true story following the Full Monty feel-good template.
Our heroine is Liz Evans (Samantha Morton), a hairdresser from Carmarthen who runs the local youth theatre group in an Art Deco theatre/cinema called
The Lyric.
When corrupt mayor Tom Jenkins (Adeel Akhtar) and his property developer pal (Colm Meaney) hatch a plan to demolish it to build a shopping centre, plucky Liz springs into action.
To the horror of her husband David (Owain Yeoman) but with the support of her three sons, Mark (Harry Luke), Huw (Joe Hurst) and Wynne (Flynn Edwards),
Liz takes up residence in The Lyric, confident that wrecking balls won’t swing at the listed building while she is still inside.
To keep paying the cinema’s bills, she turns to kindly retired drama teacher (Jonathan Pryce) to acquire a stolen print of How Green Was My Valley from a projectionist pal. This sparks a suitably rousing scene where the rebellious locals stand up to belt out Bread Of Heaven.
The humour is a little broad and Akhtar summons up more cringes than laughs as the one-note baddie who is so villainous he keeps his sunglasses on indoors.
But, after a slow second act, the film sparks back into life when Liz hits on what seems like a hare-brained PR stunt. She learns that the biggest film of the year, a dino flick called Jurassic Park, is soon to premiere in London. If she can persuade its famous director to let her show the film at the same time, she can shame the developers and raise cash for the theatre at the same time.
This formulaic affair won’t change the course of modern cinema like Jurassic Park, but Morton makes her snipper into a suitably inspirational heroine.