Let me preface this review by informing you that I have never watched the tv show that this film is based upon. Also its co-stars, Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling were in the two biggest movies of 2023, Oppenheimer and Barbie, released fortuitously on the same day, birthing the moniker Barbenheimer, a cultural phenomenon for the film industry. I have not watched those films either. I come to this movie with my own prejudices. Blunt is a fantastic actor, Gosling is ok, I love a film where I don’t have to think a lot. So I popped down to Northampton Filmhouse to check out this new movie, which I’d seen the trailers for and which piqued my interest.
Just a note once again to let you know how much I enjoy the cinema experience at the Filmhouse. It’s great, lovely staff, comfy seats, lots of room and not many disturbances. Please support this local cinema. The one downside is that it is more expensive than other local chain cinemas, but check out the films they have on offer, because they regularly put on classic cinema and it’s been great for me to witness the fitness of films I would never have had the chance to see, mainly because I wasn’t born, on the big screen.
This film was fucking tremendous. Good fun, no waiting, no thinking. Our hero played by Blunt is a camera operator turned director for the talkies. Our other slightly jaded hero played by Gosling is a stunt man. He gets injured on set. Hilarity ensues. (Not about his injury, I mean the film in general.) Does the girl get the boy? How many stunts can they pack into one film? Will Aaron Taylor-Johnson ever play a convincing role on the big screen? You decide. Look, the film is fun, fun, fun. A silly love story wrapped in a fuck load of stunts. And if you stay for the credits, you get to see the actual stunts of the stunts in the film. And I mean a fuck load of stunts. Stuntingly (is that a word? Fuck it, it is now!) impressive.
As a person who doesn’t like to think too much when being entertained, this film filled that gap perfectly. You don’t have to think too much, just watch and be amused and entertained and tickled occasionally. I did think though that both Blunt and Gosling are far too good looking to be real. I mean look at these handsome bastards.
Special mention to Hannah Waddingham who I do have a bit of a crush on because she’s just the fucking one. She plays a ‘producer’ who slips in and out and shakes it all about a bit and is possibly the brains behind the whole operation, in the film. Waddingham came to my attention when viewing Ted Lasso (fucking great TV show on Apple, defo worth a watch or three) and I’ve had the acting hots for her ever since. She’s just a bloody good actor and she deserves every good thing coming her way.
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