Main Street (Colin Firth)

(Amazon UK link)

I assume Amazon recommended the 2010 film ‘Main Street’ to me because Colin Firth is one of the main characters in it. The blurb sounded interesting, so I put it on my wishlist, and was given it for my recent birthday. We decided to watch it last night.

Unlike most films with Colin Firth, it’s set in the United States, in a small town in North Carolina. Firth doesn’t even appear in the first part of the film. Instead we meet the delightful elderly Georgiana (Ellen Burstyn), showing her house to a visitor. He comments that he’s heard that she’s thinking of selling it, and she insists that she doesn’t want to. She’s a bit doddery on her feet and evidently finds it hard to keep up such a huge house - but she’s lived there all her life.

When Georgiana is feeling nervous, her niece Willa (Patricia Clarkson) drives over to reassure her, to advise and generally to assist. She’s a competent woman, and they are clearly fond of each other. Willa thinks her aunt should sell the house; she’s less emotional and more practical.

There’s also an apparently unconnected story involving a young woman called Mary (Amber Tamblyn), who lives with her mother and is in love with someone who keeps cancelling on her. There’s a young policeman called Harris (Orlando Bloom) who is in love with Mary, but she has been avoiding him.

The characters and settings are well established when we finally meet Gus Leroy, the businessman who has rented a warehouse from Georgiana. Colin Firth is excellent in this role, although it was a bit of a jolt, at first, to hear him speaking in what seemed like quite an authentic accent from the American south. His business is in storing canisters that are potentially dangerous, but Georgiana had not realised this when they agreed.

Willa thinks her aunt should terminate the contract and return the money, but Willa has already spent it; she doesn’t like to admit it, but she is struggling with the upkeep of her house. And Gus has too many things going on, too many arrangements made. So they come to an agreement…

Gus is a businessman but he’s stringent about safety, and, it turns out, he’s kind-hearted too. And when something dramatic and potentially scary happens, he has to make a difficult decision.

I liked the way that there were so many subplots operating alongside each other, with some overlap between characters. I thought the acting was excellent; other than the brief blip at hearing Colin Firth with a southern American accent, we were caught up in the action, forgetting at times that this is a fictional story.

There’s some low-key romance in this film, but primarily it’s a drama, presumably one that’s realistic in its premise. We see a small town with little going for it, potentially boosted by a new industry which has helped other small towns to grow. We see relationships, some of them going back a long way, some new and unexpected. And there are a lot of interesting characters.

It’s quite slow moving at first, which may make it less appealing to those who prefer more action. But I appreciated the conversations and imagery, and the way we get to know each of the main characters before the story really gets going.

I felt that the ending was a tad abrupt; I would like to have known more about the future for some of the people whose lives were changed. But my husband thought it ended in exactly the right place. We both liked it very much, and thought it extremely well done.

There are no extras on our DVD. The rating is PG, which reflects the lack of anything that might trigger the censors, other than one dramatic and somewhat disturbing scene, though nothing explicit is shown. But I doubt if this would be of any interest to children or teens.

 
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