Before You Go (Julie Walters)

(Amazon UK link)

I don’t know how the 2002 film ‘Before you go’ ended up on my wishlist. Perhaps Amazon recommended it to me, based on films I had previously chosen. Perhaps it was because Julie Walters is one of the main characters. Perhaps someone else suggested it. It doesn’t matter: I was given it for my recent birthday, and we watched it last night.

Julie Walters is excellent as the rather uptight middle-aged Teresa, who is always perfectly made up and appropriately dressed. She’s married to Frank (Tom Wilkinson) and they have mainly been responsible for looking after her mother Vi (Patricia Hodge). We first meet them talking to a hospital doctor, learning that Vi has died.

Teresa has two sisters: Mary (Joanna Whalley) is the middle one, who is a busy doctor. She’s having an affair with one of her colleagues, Mike (John Hannah) who is married, and has mixed memories of her childhood. But personality-wise she’s probably the most ‘normal’ of the three… except that she keeps seeing her mother walking around the house, talking to her, as a realistic ghost.

The youngest, Catherine (Victoria Hamilton) is a wonderful caricature of an impoverished joint-smoking hippy, who drinks too much and has been living in Thailand, hoping to get married to one of the locals.

The film takes place over a few days as the three very different sisters get together, attempting to sort out some of their mother’s possessions, and organising the funeral. They have rather different memories of the past, and Teresa disapproves of both her sisters for different reasons - but she’s also very fond of them.

It’s billed as a comedy drama, and the blurb on the back of the DVD box says it’s ‘a cert for laughs’. There are one or two amusing moments in the film; such as when Teresa attempts to relax by singing recipes. Catherine’s excesses could perhaps be viewed as funny although we thought them a bit sad; however one scene involving two of the sisters trying on some of their mother’s clothes, while drinking too much, is light-hearted and somewhat amusing, but turns into slapstick and becomes rather silly.

Overall we thought it poignant rather than comic. The reason for the sisters being together is obviously somewhat sad, and some of what comes up in the past is tragic - including one revelation towards the end. However, once we’d realised it was a drama with a few light moments, the film was surprisingly engaging and enjoyable.

When I wasn’t involved in what was happening, I was wracking my brains to try to remember where I had previously seen Victoria Hamilton - and, to a lesser extent, John Hannah. Both have distinctive faces, and I was certain I’d seen Victoria Hamilton somewhere recently but could not recall where. As soon as the film ended I googled; John Hannah was in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, which I should perhaps have remembered. But I mentally kicked myself when I realised that Victoria Hamilton was a significant character in the excellent TV drama ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ which we finished watching in January this year.

'Before you go' is rated 15 in the UK, and I think that’s probably right. There are scenes of intimacy; not explicit but clearly implied. There’s a fair amount of ‘strong’ language, and there’s a lot of drinking and joint-smoking. The subject matter is unlikely to be of interest to children or younger teens anyway.

It’s a film we will probably watch again in another six or seven years. I would recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of character-based drama with some quite hard-hitting issues.

Review copyright 2023 Sue's DVD Reviews

Lark Rise to Candleford TV series (Olivia Hallinan)

(Amazon UK link)

We were given the full box set of ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’ for Christmas 2018. It wasn’t something I had put on my wishlist, and I thought at first that it was an error. My father, however, told me that he had very much liked the series when it was broadcast, and thought I would too. I thanked him, and put it in our to-be-watched drawer, and there it sat until April last year when we decided to start watching.

I’m not sure either of us expected very much, but the BBC is good at period dramas, and we thought we might at least watch two or three episodes, to see what it was about. We did not expect to get drawn into the story, so much so that we watched at least one episode per week, sometimes two, until we finally reached the end last night. I feel like I’ve said goodbye to friends, as we took the DVD out.

The series is loosely based on a book of the same name by Flora Thompson, charting her life in a village in Oxfordshire towards the end of the 19th century. Flora’s character is that of a young girl called Laura in the series, expertly played by Olivia Hallinan. She is the oldest of five children living in a cottage in the fictional village of Lark Rise.

Her parents, Robert (Brendan Coyle) and Emma (Claudie Blakly) are an excellent couple, with some disagreements, some heartfelt discussions, and a lot of love. They have agreed that it’s time for Laura to go out to work. But as she’s bright - she learned to read at a young age, and writes in a journal every day - they are sending her to work for Emma’s cousin Dorcas Lane (Julia Sawalha) in the nearby town of Candleford. Dorcas is the postmistress, and her other employee is Thomas (Mark Heap) who is hard-working and full of religious fervour.

There are other characters who come into all of most of the four seasons: in Candleford we get to know the sisters Ruby and Pearl, who run a dressmaking establishment, and the vicar’s daughter Margaret who is rather keen on Thomas. In Lark Rise, Emma and Robert’s neighbours are the elderly Queenie and Twister. Their other neighbours are the Arliss family: Caroline (Dawn French) is feckless, lacks self-control and drinks too much… her husband is away at sea most of the time, and the care of the family falls on her eldest son Alf (John Dagleish), who is Laura’s best friend and not too keen on her going up in the world by working at Candleford Post Office.

The stories weave around these main folk, introducing others, many of whom appear in just one or two episodes, although others come to stay: Millie the maid (Ruby Bentall), the boy Sydney (Edward Darnell-Hayes), Daniel the journalist (Ben Aldridge) and Gabriel (Richard Harrington) all become significant characters by the end.

As a piece of social history, it is superb. We watched some of the ‘extras’ which are distributed amongst the DVDs, mainly in the second series, and were astonished at the amount of detail that went into the constructing of the sets, and (for instance) making Lark Rise look like December for the Christmas episode that was filmed in August. The costumes, the interactions, the local customs and the hard work of farming felt authentic, and were shown without any pity - indeed, the advent of the railway and mechanical farming tools are not welcomed, despite their potentially easing some of the burden of farming by hand.

But the series is essentially about the people. Unlike many period dramas, there are no upper class folk living in luxury; there’s a squire and his wife who feature in the earlier series, but the squire, at least, is friendly - perhaps too friendly with one individual - and understands some of the needs and stresses of the ordinary working folk. There’s some tension between the business-people of Candleford and the farming community of Lark Rise, some of whom struggle to put food on the table and are often behind with their rent. But the Lark Rise folk are proud; they want to work (other than Twister, perhaps) and are reluctant to accept any kind of help or charity.

Since I haven't read the book, I have no idea how close the people in the TV series are to Flora Thompson's originals. Fans of the book might find it difficult to watch, since I understand that the story-lines are mostly very different. But it doesn't claim to be a true adaptation of the book, it's a series based on it.

It’s difficult, in retrospect, to say just why we both loved this series so much - all I can say is, if you have any interest in period drama, or character-based stories with realistic people and some humour as well as some quite poignant scenes (including one very depressing episode) then I would highly recommend this series.

Review copyright 2023 Sue's DVD Reviews