Sunday Independent (Ireland)

FILM OF THE WEEK

Stan & Ollie Cert: PG; Now showing

- HILARY A WHITE

It’s 1953, and Laurel and Hardy’s stock value has fallen dramatical­ly from its Hollywood heyday. Struggling to get a new film financed, they embark on a theatre tour of the UK and Ireland. The jaunt is initially a thankless one, with pitiful audiences turning up to the undersized venues.

The bubble of being on the road and the crossroads the world-famous duo are at, means that Ollie (John C Reilly) and Stan (Steve Coogan) are also in a reflective mood and can’t help but examine their changing fortunes through the years.

Some raking over of old coals is bound to take place, but rather than constantly resort to flashbacks, Jeff Pope’s screenplay is able to stay largely in the now and spark off elements swirling around the comedy titans. These include the arrival from the US of wives Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson) and Ida Laurel (Nina Arianda).

While gentle of pace and prone to slight dips in wattage, affection drips off the screen in this biopic from Jon S Baird (Filth) without things ever feeling saccharine or cloying.

A musty, faded charm pervades in the cinematogr­aphy (as you could only expect), while there are moments of exquisite subtlety in Pope’s screenplay as the pair’s undulating relationsh­ip is projected on to the various dance and comedy routines they perform.

Naturally, the core duet taking place between Coogan and Reilly is the axis on which the whole film spins, and it is a sublime one indeed.

Coogan arguably does his finest acting work to date, while Reilly, heavily made up with extra poundage, locates a particular twinkle in the eye that will be instantly recognisab­le to fans. A masterful double-act in its own right.

 ??  ?? Steve Coogan and John C Reilly in ‘Stan and Ollie’
Steve Coogan and John C Reilly in ‘Stan and Ollie’

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