![]() ![]() It's a massive spoiler if I even get close to revealing it. However, there's a lot more to it than that and a gut-wrenching scene puts a whole other spin on events. Padstow's Tristan Sturrock - well known to TV audiences for his role in Poldark - stars in Long Way BackĪs they make the long journey home, David tries to make up for a lifetime of disappointments and his own shortcomings as father and daughter attempt to reconnect via musical arguments, drunken pitstops and a visit to David's foster mum, played by renowned Cornish actress Susan Penhaligon. Due to a situation beyond his control, his estranged daughter is thrown back into his life - she’s leaving university under tragic circumstances and David is the only person who can make the trip and drive her home to Cornwall. Reluctant father David (played by Poldark's Tristan Sturrock) has spent his life running away: from his foster home, from responsibilities, from his marriage and from his daughter, Lea ( Truro actress Chloe Endean, who also wowed in Bait). And don't expect some souped-up drag racing road movie as this one's set in an old banger of a Saab (apologies to producer Simon Harvey whose family car it is), and the main characters are less comedic buddies on the run and more an estranged father and teenage daughter, whose twain is destined to never meet. Twenty-three locations in the Duchy double up as various roadsides, cafes, lay-bys and rural houses in Wales. It's that rare thing, a road movie set in the UK. Read more: Cornish director films his own battle with Parkinson’s disease in powerful short movie The film - which debuted at Manchester Film Festival in March - was shot on location in Cornwall over 18 days in the summer of 2019 with its original release date delayed due to Covid. Long Way Back is a road movie with a difference which has already proved a hit at film festivals.Ĭornish director and writer Brett Harvey has long promised great things with his vibrant and darkly humorous movies, Weekend Retreat and Brown Willy, but with Long Way Back he has produced a classic, which deserves to be celebrated just as much as Cornwall's big screen hit and BAFTA winner Bait. There is enough ambiguity in the relationships of both couples to keep the story interesting but most audiences may conclude that there is not enough at stake to make them truly care about the outcome.A Cornish film, which received a rapturous response from audiences when it premiered in April, will now get a wider screening in cinemas across Cornwall and further afield. When they meet young holiday couple Suzanne (Natalie Dormer) and Mark (Paul Nicholls), Joseph is instantly smitten and pursues her to the point of foolishness.įox is very adept at conveying the subtle shift of moods in a man wearily resigned to the unvarying routine of his life but briefly persuaded that things could be very different.Ī radiant Natalie Dormer is equally convincing as a woman not entirely convinced that her future lies with her boyfriend. They have become the old couple in a restaurant who have nothing left to say to one another.īrenda seems frail and increasingly forgetful but Joseph is still full of vitality. After fifty years together, Joseph (Fox) and Brenda (Brenda Fricker) have retired to southern France. The blinding summer light of Nimes is a crucial factor in a slight tale that has echoes of the works of E.M. Without the crowd-pleasing elements of Marigold Hotel or the artistic rigour of Amour, A Long Way Home may struggle to connect with an older audience theatrically but could have better opportunities among home viewers.The film had its world premiere at the Edinburgh Internartional Film Festival. There is enough ambiguity in the relationships of both couples to keep the story interesting. Writer/director Virginia Gilbert has adapted her own short story into a film that gives James Fox his most substantial role in years but lacks the bite or emotional heft to truly beguile. If the central couple in Rossellini’s Voyage To Italy had grown old together they might have wound up as Joseph and Brenda in A Long Way Home, a modest exploration of old age, exile and longing. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |