116. Finding Your Feet; movie review

FINDING YOUR FEET
Cert 12A
111 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate sex references, drug use, infrequent strong language

"I see old people," said Mrs W, adapting the famous quote from the Sixth Sense.
Sure enough, we were among only five people without grey hair in a busy Nottingham Cineworld screen 6.
And I was all prepared for a right good giggle along the lines of the Exotic Marigold Hotel.
But, disappointingly, Richard Loncraine's Finding Your Feet wallowed in such a high level of misery that, after watching it, I felt compelled to call my mum and dad to warn them not to buy tickets to see it.
My parents enjoy going to the cinema on Mondays and had the movie in their sights but they don't enjoy films about death, cancer or Alzheimer's disease.
This film has the set and an acrimonious separation thrown in.
In my view, while the film's makers are trying to sew a silver lining with a few giggles, the weight of sadness is just too great.
In addition, I found that I could predict almost all of the picture's key scenes five minutes before they happened.
It struck me that the very talented cast were wasted on dreary dialogue.
Imelda Staunton plays a Hyacinth Bucket-alike who discovers the affair of her husband (John Sessions) and friend (Josie Lawrence) and seeks solace at the council flat of a sister (Celia Imrie) she hasn't seen for ten years.
Meanwhile, after awkward beginnings, she starts a timid romance with an easygoing bargee (Timothy Spall).
Staunton's Sandra spends half of the film wallowing in self-pity before being shaken out of it by her sister and her friends.
Meanwhile, unknown to her, they all have their own crosses to bear but make less fuss, preferring to kick out their problems with Thursday dance classes.
Loncarine makes a classic director''s mistake of trying to cover too many bases. Scenes are short and rush too quickly from one to another.
This means that his few gags are mainly one-liners rather than a set piece which I had unfortunately seen during the trailer (I really do try to avoid them).
The latter had prompted expectation of an hilarious contribution from Joanna Lumley but she speaks fewer than 50 words.
Finding Your feet's heart is definitely in the right place and I particularly enjoyed Imrie's impishness but, if it is meant to be a comedy, it needed many more funny moments.

Reasons to watch: All-star British cast
Reasons to avoid: Its tragedy overwhelms any potential comedy

Laughs: Three
Jumps: None
Vomit: Yes
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 5/10

Director Richard Loncraine: "We started off by making quite a broad comedy but I realised that, after a few days of shooting that it shouldn't be as broad as we were doing it and we backed off and made the comedy smaller and the poignancy stronger."

The big question - How do we manage to carry on despite life's inevitable tragedies?

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