They know where the secrets are, but also that they never need to justify anything to each other. They laugh about their shortcomings, of lost loves, and explore sincere interest in each other’s journey out there in the real world. A mutual retrospective on the trauma of youth, but also on their shared survival of higher education. These are replaced with genuine tenderness and care for each other. Gone are the verbal barbs, literary references (there are some wonderful scenes where they consult Emily Brontë for life advice), and the intense sarcasm, wonderfully written by Leigh as always. Marten’s boots, now safely replaced with beige pants and comfortable blazers. The story flips back and forth between flashbacks of their life together as students in London, and their present-day lives as career-oriented women, reconnecting and reminiscing after many years apart. And Annie (Lynda Steadman), a shy, anxious and emotionally damaged goth, perpetually involved with the wrong guy at the wrong time. The spiky, intense and verbally dexterous Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge), whose ferocious sarcasm belies a deep family sadness, a need to be loved and genuine tenderness for others. The story’s told through the lens of two seemingly very different women. It’s a film that’s stayed with me for many years, and is one of those stories that often reaches beyond the screen and into your heart as you recall the friends you’ve lost touch with. Ultimately Career Girls is a story of love between two, and perhaps three, college friends, who meet under the mundane circumstances of simply needing a place to live. Leigh’s been vocal about his motivation for Career Girls, explaining that he was interested in the large life differences in what happens to us between ages 20-30. PG-13, some vulgarity and partial nudity.Following the success of the apocalyptic Naked (1993) and the harrowing Secrets & Lies (1996), at the end of the nineties Mike Leigh turned to a smaller, more intimate subject, the nostalgia for youth. You can’t go wrong with that, though if it’s fresh, new, innovative cinema you want, you should look elsewhere. There is much warmth and reconciliation in the final act, indicative of the movie’s goodheartedness. Dellal does not generally overplay any of this - indeed, I like the subtlety with which she addresses the death of Rob’s brother, not spelling everything out for us - but the sheer NUMBER of demons to be faced makes it hard not to feel like we’re being hit over the head with it. Chan (Benedict Wong) needs to stand up for himself Joan must pass her bus-driver’s test and so it goes. Rob’s brother died when they were young Frank’s friend Danny (Billy Boyd) wants to be taken seriously as a man another friend, Norman (Ron Cook), is afraid of water Mr. The movie isn’t shy about letting us know how swimming the Channel will be a way of conquering Frank’s inner demons, and it gives everyone else a demon to vanquish, too. Obsessed with the idea - with anything that will give him a purpose in life, really - he begins training with a motley assortment of his friends and a Chinese man who runs a fish-and-chips shop in town. What Frank decides a man should do is swim the English Channel, a distance of some 20 miles. Frank and Rob disagree over what a “man” should do. That is the source of the rift between Frank and his grown son Rob (Jamie Sives), who is a househusband for his twin sons while his wife works. Frank is too proud to let his wife be the breadwinner. His wife, Joan (Brenda Blethyn), is secretly training to be a bus driver to make ends meet. He wanders around his English seaside town in a daze, swimming at the rec center for fun but otherwise suffering from panic attacks and general malaise. Our hero is Frank (Peter Mullan), recently laid off from the shipyard where he has worked for decades and now feeling defeated. In this case it’s an old man who wants to swim the English Channel, but it could also be laid-off workers who want to strip (“The Full Monty”), or struggling factory owners who make shoes for transvestites ( “Kinky Boots”), or old ladies who pose naked for charity ( “Calendar Girls”), or strange villagers who want to collect a dead man’s lottery winnings (“Waking Ned Devine”), or I could go on and on.Īpart from that, it’s a reasonably charming story, directed by Gaby Dellal and written by Alex Rose (it’s the first feature for both of them) with confidence, if not always with grace. The only thing wrong with “On a Clear Day” is that it’s too similar to too many other movies in which eccentric British people do odd things.
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