Great cast, but this tale has no spring in its step
There’s no doubting the power of the “grey pound”, with otherwise underserved older viewers flocking to the likes of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or last year’s Victoria & Abdul. Life doesn’t stop at 40, even if Hollywood ageing historically tended to. So full marks to Finding Your Feet for giving Imelda Staunton a leading role and filling the cast almost entirely with older stars. But what a shame they’re given such creaky material to work with.
We meet Lady Sandra Abbot (Staunton), a thorough snob and low-key racist, on top of the world. She owes her title to her husband Mike’s (John Sessions) long career in the police and is now planning to enjoy retirement in their enormous home.
Alas, she discovers that her husband has been having an affair and leaves him to move in with her estranged, but welcoming sister Bif (Imrie) on a north London council estate. Sandra’s airs and graces alienate Bif ’s crowd, but as she takes tentative steps to make friends with handyman Charlie (Timothy Spall) and the much-married Jackie (Joanna Lumley), Sandra rediscovers a childhood love of dance and begins to shed her affectations.
It’s a promising set-up, but the story
is profoundly predictable. Every development is heavily telegraphed and there is very little nuance in the way that the characters’ lives unfold. Goodies turn out to be saints; bad guys might as well twirl a moustache and hiss while they’re about it. Sandra is the only one with any shades of grey, and even those are soon whitewashed over as she sheds her old life.
Worse, the film adopts one of the most hackneyed and irritating tropes of the romcom: the major piece of information that is implausibly held back from one character, only to be discovered just in time to become a speed-bump on the path to true love.
The age of the cast means that, unlike your average romcom, this deals with the hardships and complications of ageing. Yet it seems timid. Death comes quickly and painlessly, and major illness is portrayed as something involving just a few twinges and a few extra pills. Charlie’s wife is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, which is about as tough as it gets, but even that is almost glossed over in the end, doing a major disservice to Spall’s heartbreaking performance.
It’s not all bad: no film with this cast could ever fail entirely. Staunton makes you root for Sandra even at her worst, and Imrie offers an impish, joyous counterbalance to her pursedlip disapproval. There’s almost a thrill in seeing such a recognisable London on the screen too. If only the story were as carefully grounded in reality.