I must confess that I was rather looking forward to seeing this film, ever since my hairdresser told me about spending several days on set as an extra (the writer-director Paul Weiland is her cousin) -- and no I didn't spot her and can't be bothered to look again. Why not? Well because the movie was something of a downer. I thought the concept of a young lad's (supposedly based on Weiland's own experience) finding that his bar mitzvah coincided datewise with England playing in the World Cup final had great potential and I expected a jolly look back on Jewish life in England forty years ago.
I am sorry to say that it was a sour little movie and despite a relatively heart-warming final scene where the boy manages to bond with his distracted Dad, anything but a feelgood experience. The boy has dreams of a splendid function where he will be showered with gifts, but gradually sees this slipping away, not only because England are surprisingly headed towards victory which will overshadow anything else on his important day, but also because his family are feeling a financial pinch as his father's business collapses and his under-the-bed savings are destroyed in a house fire (caused, let me add, by a rogue firework rocket let off by a neighbour to celebrate a football win en route to the Cup.) Add to this a fairly unattractive cast including a stereotypical blind Rabbi straight out of the Ron Moody school of acting; the only "names" to speak of were Helena Bonham Carter playing against type as the boy's mother (maybe she took the role as a favour) and Stephen Rea in his usual hangdog mode as a local doctor whose wife is cheating on him. Period detail was, I think, well thought out, but a great shame that nostalgia here proved such a disappointment.
1 comment:
I was really looking forward to seeing this one. Now I think I will put it on the back burner. I will watch it eventually, but I won't put myself out for it.
http://journals.aol.co.uk/acoward15/andy-the-bastard
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