3.5 stars (out of 5)
When you hear that this familial-intensive dramatic comedy is from the creators of TV’s Outnumbered – co-writers/co-directors Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin – you’ll probably think you know exactly what to expect. And chances are you’ll be wrong, as this, their first feature film as a double-act, is less easily cute and rather more troubled than that smallscreen fave, with a cast of adult names behaving like children and another trio of children forced to behave like adults.
Doug McLeod (David Tennant with his actual accent) and his wife Abi (Rosamund Pike, a long way from Gone Girl) know that their marriage is on the way out but keep lying about it to their three kids, thinking it’s for the best (while also knowing that it’s surely not). We meet them as they’re preparing to take cluey eldest Lottie (Emilia Jones), Viking-obsessed Mickey (Bobby Smalldridge) and little Jess (Harriet Turnbull) to the Scottish coast for Granddad’s 75th birthday, and they argue incessantly as the children worry about how sick Granddad is and generally carry on in a slightly Outnumbered fashion. When they arrive and meet up with Doug’s uptight brother Gavin (Ben Miller) and his mostly silenced wife Margaret (Amelia Bullmore), more fighting commences and it’s all too much for the children, who opt to spend quality time with Granddad. And he’s, of course, played by no less than Billy Connolly in a lovely, melancholically funny performance as a character obviously written by Hamilton and Jenkin to acknowledge Billy’s own fragile health.
So far, so straightforward, you might think, and yet there are twists here that no one could see coming, and while these might strain credibility a touch, there’s no doubt that they give the film an unexpected edge. Although maybe not that unexpected now that you’ve been warned…
I Wake Up Screening 