I'd been really looking forward to seeing this. Despite my female-sounding IMDb username I am, in fact, a bloke - one who, at the time of writing this review, is heading towards his 60s and has recently had personal experience of rediscovering people/relationships I had thought long lost. In other words, I am pretty much a shoe-in for the target audience demographic of this movie. On paper, this tale should have had my emotions resonating like a steeple full of church bells.
Alas, no. It was decently told, to be sure, and thoroughly watchable, but despite good performances throughout, I found it oddly uninvolving. From start to finish, I felt that I was being kept at a respectable arm's length from anything so dangerous as genuine passion or emotional engagement - which is weird, because it's not as if the storyline lacks potential for drama: memories of first love... regret... rivalry... guilt... even teenage suicide, for heaven's sake! - but it was all played out with such bland, even-paced politeness that my bells remained firmly un-clanged.
Mind you, it wasn't helped by the bizarre physical miscasting of the two Veronicas (young and old). People of my generation and older remember what Charlotte Rampling looked like in the 60s - hard to forget! - a look immortalised by the fashionable photographers of the day: skinny, flattish-chested and angular; all shadows, highlights and fabulous cheekbones. So how on earth are we supposed to believe in a young Veronica played by a curvy, pouty-lipped, oval-faced actress such as Freya Mavor? She couldn't have looked LESS like Charlotte Rampling if she'd grown an extra head!
Finally, there was one corking gaffe in the script that made me laugh with derision. An insignificant moment plot-wise, perhaps, but off-putting all the same. There is a scene in which Tony Webster is having lunch with his amicably-divorced ex-wife Margaret. She says "Do you remember that Swedish Au Pair we had? I was tidying her room one day and found her diary. When I read it, I was shocked to find out that...(blah blah blah)". Really? She was reading her Swedish Au Pair's personal diary? Wouldn't that have been written in er... Swedish? Margaret may well be a top lawyer and jolly clever, but even amongst her professional class I don't know that many Brits who are casually fluent in Scandinavian languages.
So, by all means see this movie if you want to - as I said, it's watchable - but don't expect to be riven to the core by it. Such a shame...
Alas, no. It was decently told, to be sure, and thoroughly watchable, but despite good performances throughout, I found it oddly uninvolving. From start to finish, I felt that I was being kept at a respectable arm's length from anything so dangerous as genuine passion or emotional engagement - which is weird, because it's not as if the storyline lacks potential for drama: memories of first love... regret... rivalry... guilt... even teenage suicide, for heaven's sake! - but it was all played out with such bland, even-paced politeness that my bells remained firmly un-clanged.
Mind you, it wasn't helped by the bizarre physical miscasting of the two Veronicas (young and old). People of my generation and older remember what Charlotte Rampling looked like in the 60s - hard to forget! - a look immortalised by the fashionable photographers of the day: skinny, flattish-chested and angular; all shadows, highlights and fabulous cheekbones. So how on earth are we supposed to believe in a young Veronica played by a curvy, pouty-lipped, oval-faced actress such as Freya Mavor? She couldn't have looked LESS like Charlotte Rampling if she'd grown an extra head!
Finally, there was one corking gaffe in the script that made me laugh with derision. An insignificant moment plot-wise, perhaps, but off-putting all the same. There is a scene in which Tony Webster is having lunch with his amicably-divorced ex-wife Margaret. She says "Do you remember that Swedish Au Pair we had? I was tidying her room one day and found her diary. When I read it, I was shocked to find out that...(blah blah blah)". Really? She was reading her Swedish Au Pair's personal diary? Wouldn't that have been written in er... Swedish? Margaret may well be a top lawyer and jolly clever, but even amongst her professional class I don't know that many Brits who are casually fluent in Scandinavian languages.
So, by all means see this movie if you want to - as I said, it's watchable - but don't expect to be riven to the core by it. Such a shame...